The case for energy loans: read our latest explainer
At the Farmers for Climate conference in Canberra, Mike Casey shared his electric story of bill savings and emissions reductions and, with an expansion of a loan scheme, there's an opportunity for Aussie farmers to follow suit.
As the story said:
Mike Casey who is the chief executive of Rewiring Aotearoa runs the world’s first fully electric cherry farm in New Zealand.
Casey shared his insights with farmers about what he’s gained from going fully electric, which involved investing in solar and battery, electric tractors and electric frost fans, saving tens of thousands annually.
“Replacing our diesel machines with electric ones certainly wasn’t cheap. The upfront costs were significant, but it made economic sense because we’d save more money in the long run,” Mike Casey said.
The forward thinking farmer said any help people could get to make the switch was a step in the right direction.
“New Zealand is obviously different to Australia in many ways but I would say any help to make it easier for farmers to harness renewables is a good thing,” he said.
It comes as the Federal Government announced a $1 billion boost to the Regional Investment Corporation’s loan funding capacity.
The money can be burrowed by farmers facing difficulty, including drought-affected producers, to improve the resilience and profitability of their farms.
The Federal Government also announced it was expanding the Regional Investment Corporation’s scope to help farmers improve their climate resilience, and ensuring the agriculture sector was a part of Australia’s transition to net zero.
Rewiring Australia CEO Francis Vierboom said the broadening of the scope would allow farmers to invest in electric technology being harnessed by farmers like Mike Casey.
“Farmers have a lot to gain by harnessing renewable energy. By switching to electric, they can slash fuel bills, and reduce running costs by generating and storing their own power,” Rewiring Australia CEO Francis Vierboom said.
“We welcome the expansion of the RIC loans to include climate resilience. It will help farmers learning from experts like Mike Casey take that real-world knowledge back to their own farms, and save money and reduce their carbon footprint at the same time,” he said.
In the last Electric Avenue of 2025, we look at the two biggest trends in the world of energy; the Government goes electric for its fancy fleet upgrade; Nick Offerman offers his services to a US campaign extolling the virtues of EVs; Australia shows what's possible in new homes when you add solar, batteries and smart tech; a start-up selling portable solar and battery systems that wants it to be as easy and common as wi-fi; and The Lines Company looks to put some solar on the roof of the Ōtorohanga Kiwi House.
Read moreDownloadWhen it comes to electric farming, "the numbers are becoming undeniable," says Nicholson Poultry's Jeff Collings. With 60kW of solar, a Nissan Leaf as a 'farm quad', electric mowers, an electric ute that can run a water blaster, and even a chicken manure scraper made out of a wrecked Tesla that, as Rewiring's Matt Newman says, looks a bit like something out of Mad Max, "almost everything is electric". There aren't many others in New Zealand who have gone this far down the electric road. And, with his electric Stark Varg, the fastest off-road motorbike in the world, he's obviously having plenty of fun on that road, too.
Read moreDownloadRNZ's Kate Newton reports on the "madness" of thousands of new piped gas connections being installed into houses every year, despite dwindling supplies and higher lifetime costs.
Casey said it was positive that the numbers showed people starting to leave the gas network of their own accord, but not all households were in a position to make that choice.
"If we don't plan for a decommissioning of the gas network, then it's going to be a chaotic transition, where vulnerable New Zealanders really suffer."
As the research of Rewiring and others has shown, gas is expensive, it's getting more expensive, it's terrible for your health when burned inside and there are substitutes available right now that, on average, do the same job for less money over the long run for households, would save the country billions on health costs and lost productivity, and don't pump out unnecessary emissions.
Around 300,000 homes and businesses have connections to the gas network (it’s estimated another 300,000 use more expensive bottled gas, mostly in the South Island). The number of active connections has started to decline recently and the country’s largest gas network, Vector, is forecasting no new residential or commercial connections after 2029.
Upfront capital costs are the main barrier for many homes, which is why we're working hard on a low-interest, long-term loan scheme that can be used to pay for electric upgrades, including hot water heat pumps. This would mean paying for a new thing with a loan would be cheaper than paying to run the old thing.
Read more about the scheme here.
Disconnection costs are also a major barrier. We have seen examples where households permanently disconnecting from the network have been charged between $1,000 and $2,000 to have a meter permanently removed (i.e. digging up the pipes to the road), even though it should only cost customers $200 to have the connection capped at the house.
RNZ even reported a case where a business customer was quoted $7,500 but took the case to Utilities Disputes, where complaints about disconnection costs have been rising.
The Australian Energy Regulator and the state of Victoria have now capped the disconnection fees to a few hundred dollars to stop this kind of behaviour and protect households.