Rewiring was invited to take up a spot in its Advocacy Hub at Fieldays and Mike Casey spoke to Langford about the organisation's three main asks for the next Government in this area: unleash the potential of solar, establish national standards for small -and medium-scale solar installs, and level the electricity playing field.

As it says in the manifesto, solar presents a unique opportunity for farmers and rural communities to cut costs, increase resilience, improve environmental outcomes, and even diversify income streams. But it is not just an opportunity for rural communities.

"It’s a huge opportunity for New Zealand Inc. On-farm solar could effectively become the country’s largest and most sustainable power plant."

While solar technology has moved quickly, the regulatory system hasn’t kept pace – and that’s become a huge point of frustration.

"Farmers investing in solar often face expensive, unnecessary and unjustified resource consenting costs", and establishing a national standard would go a long way to fixing that.

Another concern for many farmers who have installed solar is the difficulty they face selling electricity back into the grid at a fair price.

"To put it bluntly, they’re getting a raw deal. Power companies pay farmers only a fraction of the price they later sell that electricity for, while pocketing the difference."

Allowing multiple trading relationships and peer-to-peer trading would also improve the returns from on-farm solar investment.

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