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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.
When Mike Casey bought his house near Cromwell, it came with gas bottles on the side of the home for water and an expensive diesel system for the underfloor heating. He replaced both of them with a Steibel Eltron system and it's been saving him money ever since. As technical manager Bhawesh Singh told him at the Electrify Queenstown conference, there has been a big influx in enquiries from homes looking to get off the molecules and onto electrons.
Read moreDownloadConfidence that cutting regulations to make solar power more accessible - won't jeopardise people's safety. A new Regulation Ministry reports laid out a potential blueprint to legalise plug-in solar and reduce the time and cost of panel installation. Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey shares his thoughts with Andrew Dickens.
The burgeoning demand for solar was also a chance to address a mismatch between the numbers of training opportunities available and young people searching for work, Casey said. "The mums of New Zealand are telling me that there's not enough apprenticeships for their kids and the solar installers of New Zealand are telling me there's not enough trained people."
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