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Once you've electrified your own life, we suggest you electrify someone else's life. Mike Casey has managed to convince a lot of people to do that, including his parents, but his dad Simon Casey has taken things up a notch recently by buying 648 panels for his lifestyle block in the Wairarapa.
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.
High fuel prices are hurting different demographics in different ways. We've seen stories of low-income households having to choose between food and transport; businesses reliant on diesel that are on the brink as margins shrink; and now, those in rural districts spending "as much as five times more of their household budgets on fuel than city dwellers".
Paul Spain heads to Central Otago to meet Mike Casey at Electric Cherries, exploring what happens when tech thinking meets hands‑on farming. Mike shares his journey from scaling tech startups in Sydney to creating New Zealand’s first fully electric cherry orchard, powered by onsite solar to reduce energy costs and build long‑term resilience. The conversation dives into the real economics of electrification, smart infrastructure choices, and how practical technology decisions can unlock productivity, sustainability, and future growth for New Zealand businesses.
Read moreDownloadThe OECD has just released its 2026 report on New Zealand's economy. And when it comes to energy, it basically gave us a 'must try harder' grade. On the proposed LNG terminal - which, remarkably, is still not dead yet despite all evidence suggesting it should be - the OECD said, as we have said, that it would not serve its intended function of lowering prices.
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