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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.
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.
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