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"Don't wait. Start small, but get into it." Evan Maehl, CEO of Waste Management NZ, certainly hasn't waited when it comes to electrification.
Evan Maehl, CEO of Waste Management NZ, certainly hasn't waited.
The company was an early adopter of electric rubbish trucks, first getting them retrofitted overseas, then retrofitting them its own workshop.
Last year, with over 50 electric rubbish trucks in its fleet, it celebrated reaching the two million electric kilometre mark and, as the shift to electric has gathered pace, the are now able to buy electric trucks directly from manufacturers like Volvo.
In addition to the emissions savings, they're much cheaper to run than diesel trucks (and those savings help offset the higher upfront costs), the drivers (and residents) like them because they're quieter and smoother, and the waste they collect can even be turned into electricity that can charge the trucks the next day.
Sounds pretty bright to us.
When you live in a 'pocket neighbourhood', it makes sense to run on the sun and embrace electric tech - and that's exactly what the Peterborough Housing Co-op in Christchurch has done. Jim Small, a trustee for the Ōtākaro Land Trust, says the co-op has been around since the early '80s and it's "designed with the community in mind". Think shared spaces, shared gardens, cars on the outside, shared utilities and shared energy.
Read moreDownloadContact's grid-scale battery at Glenbrook is switched on and the Prime Minister talks again about 'energy independence' at the opening; how steel mills and smelters here and overseas are embracing electrons; the electric wave is a massive job creation opportunity (while imported oil does bugger all on that front) and renewable projects are set to keep New South Wales out of recession; batteries have all but displaced gas for peaks in Queensland in just a couple of years, and solar and wind overtake gas for the first time globally; data shows sales of internal combustion cars peaked in 2017 but sales of EVs more than doubled between 2022 -2025; and anyone with a heat pump is making a killing.
Read moreDownloadA proposal to let people install solar panels and other green technology using low-interest loans from their council needs to go ahead "as soon as possible", its proponents say. The government asked Local Government New Zealand to present its business case for the proposed Ratepayer Assistance Scheme (RAS) in late 2025. However, ministers still had not made any decisions about whether to go ahead with the scheme - which would let councils provide long-term loans to any homeowner who wanted to access them. That's despite growing political support from parties across the spectrum.
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