'This car can...' Check out our new campaign
Trent Yeo, the founder of Ziptrek Ecotours, is a big supporter of his region's goal to become the world's most electric destination, a vision being brought to life by the Queenstown Electrification Accelerator. And he walks the talk with his own low-impact business and his highly efficient all-electric home.
His relatively small but perfectly formed house, which he says was around 15 years in the making, was built with passive house principles, so it requires much less energy to run than a standard home. It also features efficient electric machines and a sizeable solar and battery system.
That combination adds up to much lower bills (possibly $0 for the whole year as he can export excess energy, and that includes charging two EVs), greater resilience (both from volatile energy prices and natural disasters), and better air quality (which is an important consideration in his often smokey hometown of Arrowtown).
As energy prices continue to rise, more New Zealanders are figuring out that they can do what Trent has done, invest upfront in the right technology, and save thousands every year.
Getting off foreign fossil fuels and embracing locally-made electrons - from the grid and from your own rooftop - is a proven way to reduce costs and reduce emissions. And it's not about sacrifice, it's about substitution.
As he says: "Every day all of us can do better in work and play."
Financial commentator Frances Cook uses her own story to show that that an investment in solar and an EV significantly outperforms the stock market and fellow number cruncher Nadine Higgins says that if you do it right, EVs are cheaper to run and own; EV sales have climbed to their highest level since 2022 and are closing in on 2023's numbers and Go Rentals has just invested $2.3 million in some new Tesla Model Y Premiums; the gap between energy costs of diesel vans and utes and electric vans and utes is absolutely massive; solar is also going off right now, with one installer in Otago 448% above their sales target in March; Lightforce has gone back to the Barretts with a new TV ad; Wellington mayor Andrew Little explains its electrification strategy and Hutt City Council shares data showing how its fleet has gone from dirty Toyotas to cleaner EVs; Shenzen in China has electrified its public transport and taxis and that's come with big benefits - and some challenges; and a very simple illustration of the LNG terminal.
Read moreDownloadAs Minister of energy, climate and local government, Simon Watts had a great opportunity to push the country towards cheaper, cleaner and more reliable New Zealand-made energy. And that’s why we laid down a challenge and gave him the ‘MegaWatts’ moniker last year. Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey says he did some good things, like enabling more solar on farms, removing tax on solar exports, fixing onerous solar consenting requirements, putting pressure on the lines companies to pull up their socks, and getting the ball rolling on the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme. "But the LNG import terminal appears to have been a defining issue."
Read moreDownloadAfter ‘crunching the numbers’ and adding in new sources of ‘New Zealand-made energy’ to our equations, CEO Mike Casey has announced that Rewiring Aotearoa will be changing its name to Refuelling Aotearoa. There has been a huge amount of independently verified research showing electrification beats fossil fuels on economics, efficiency, emissions and energy security and that there is a huge opportunity for New Zealand to electrify, but the discovery of an infinite supply of snake oil in New Zealand has changed everything, he says.
Read moreDownload