The case for energy loans: read our latest explainer
We've seen electric cherries and electric chickens. How about electric piggies? CJ and Tim Lepper run a pig farm in Taranaki and, like a growing number of clever rural folk, they realised that solar was a slam dunk for their business.
Working with FarmGen, it installed a 1.8 megawatt system at a cost of around $1.5 million and CJ says that investment could be paid off in as little as five years.
Solar can slash bills for farmers overnight because it allows them to avoid high grid electricity costs but, with plenty of space for bigger systems, export revenue can also be significant. For them, selling a year’s worth of energy to the market at normal prices could bring in $200-250,000 each year.
It’s not just the solar that’s smart, either. The Leppers also have a system to turn the manure from 3,500 pigs into fertiliser and biogas. The biogas is sent to a 40kW generator that heats water to keep the piglets warm and Tim says it takes care of around 30% of the electricity bill.
While biogas can make sense on some farms because there’s an opportunity to turn waste into revenue, it is not a viable substitute for the gas network as there’s so little of it available and it’s more expensive than standard gas.
"We've lost the cops!" In our next instalment of Political Power, we managed to get David Seymour, deputy prime minister and leader of the Act Party, behind the wheel of a Zeekr 7x when he was in Queenstown recently. As is often the case when people take a new EV for a spin, there was much chortling as he gave it heaps up the Remarkables ski field road - and, if we take him at his word, we might even see him give Mike Casey's tractor heaps up Parliament steps in the future.
Read moreDownloadEVs are having a moment right now, so how can we get more people driving electric; Tom Selleck sums up how EV owners are feeling right now and staggering analysis shows the sun's prices have been unaffected by decades of geopolitical conflict; Scion goes solar to get off gas, while dairy farmers and homes go with solar and batteries to keep going; Saul Griffith takes his solar-powered scooter to Canberra and starts a fight with regulators; the Cancer Society's Lions Lodge in Hamilton gets some panels donated and will save $17,000 a year; and killing the Friday vibe with new studies on how fossil fuel companies made massive profits after the last energy crisis in 2022 and carbon emissions making our blood boil - perhaps quite literally.
Read moreDownloadAn electrification advocate says the rising price and falling supply of gas may not be a bad thing in the long-term. PwC research —commissioned by Gas Industry Co— has found New Zealand's gas market will need to shrink sharply as domestic supply declines. It warns this could mean business closures, job losses, and higher energy costs.