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In Farmer’s Weekly, Phil Weir outlines his vision for farms - and Mike Casey and Rewiring Aotearoa get a special mention.
Mike Casey’s Rewiring Aotearoa comes to mind first. His team have brought electrification to the fore – powering everything from cherry orchards to pump sheds. Banks are following, lining up with green-lending incentives for solar rollout.
But the real lightbulb moment for me wasn’t the panels – it was the battery behind them.
And it doesn’t have to be lithium-ion. Think of hot-water cylinders and chilled-water tanks as thermal batteries. On dairy farms, they store heat for wash-downs or cold for milk chilling – two assets you already need.
Add a modest 30 kW solar array, feed surplus power into those vessels, and you cut peak-grid draw. Slip an electric UTV (or even Elon’s Cybertruck) into the yard, reconfigure water tanks and you’re shifting more load off the grid.
Like the tradie with his van of DeWalt, you do have to stump up upfront. You’ll spend $60-100k on panels, inverters and storage. But payback typically lands well inside a 10-year warranty.
Better still, thermal batteries smooth spikes, trim energy bills and sidestep network outages. Given the fragility of the national grid, that’s a solid example of energy self-sufficiency.
New South Wales gets the memo about the importance of finance and announces scheme offering zero interest loans to households to upgrade to electric stuff; plug-in solar gets the tick of approval to go on sale in the UK soon and the New York Times says it could 'change America'; EVolocity takes electrification to the streets to gets the kids inspired (and eventually employed); a tour of the amazing recycling business Redwood Materials; Think Solar and BYD give it away now; and a skit that cuts close to the bone for many solar dads.
Read moreDownloadAdvances in technology and falling costs mean customer-owned solar and batteries can play a critical role in New Zealand’s energy infrastructure - improving affordability, resilience and sustainability. Multiple trading relationships (MTR) and peer-to-peer trading would enable this potential by increasing competition, customer choice, and innovation in the electricity market, unlocking greater consumer benefits from customer solar and batteries.
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