As the son says to the father, perhaps with a tinge of envy: "That's double the size of my array. Why did you do this?"

"Well, I can't have you one-up me," laughs the father, perhaps laying down a solar gauntlet.

Casey Snr says lifestyle block owners understand that you don't get much money back from your land. But this $350,000 investment that will take up around one third of his three hectare property is expected to return $70,000 per year through exporting energy.

That's a lot better than any bank interest rate of return, he says, and even if it was half that it would still be a successful investment.

He says we need to move away from a centralised system and the ability for lots of different New Zealanders to contribute energy, rather than just consume it, really excites him.

If you can, he recommends people go solar because you're contributing to your own solution, becoming somewhat independent from the grid, assisting others and saving money.

He says we'll always need the grid as a back-up, but this technology is also crucial when it comes to resilience. He says there have been 12 grid outages since the solar and batteries were installed at their home and they were fine - even during a 12 hour outage following a storm.

"Peace of mind has a benefit that you can't just put down to dollars and sense."

He's already invested in an electric vehicle. And his other machines are next up given he has "pretty much free energy".

In a world of political polarisation, solar is one thing that people from across the spectrum seem to agree on. Casey Snr is at the conservative end of that spectrum, but solar obviously "tickles the libertarian in [him]" and we need to do everything we can to ensure customers have a level playing field against the big incumbents.

With all the disruption to shipping and the looming cost increases being added on to the fossil fuel system as new risks are priced in, relying on the ships to keep coming and hoping prices drop is not a great strategy, but stocking up on solar panels that don't need to be refuelled for 30 years seems like a smart move right now.

Running on New Zealand-made energy works at home, at this larger scale, and for the country as a whole.

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