Rolling sunshine

Dr Saul Griffith is pretty busy trying to save the planet and convince Governments to allocate billions to speed up electrification, but, amazingly, he still finds the time to invent stuff and his latest creation is an electric scooter adorned with solar panels called the Lightfoot.

One charge gives it around 60 km of range, but the sides of the two-person scooter feature 120 kW solar panels. 

Otherlab, which manufactures the scooters and was one of many companies founded by Griffith, says one hour of "peak sunlight" averages out to about 5km of extra range and a day’s worth of sun can get an additional 29km. 

It looks a bit like a speedy briefcase and, fittingly, you could fit plenty of documents in the storage compartment if you wanted to. 

Whether you want one for yourself or want them as part of a more efficient urban fleet, running on the sun feels good. 

Across the divide

As Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey has discovered after hosting people of many different political persuasions at Forest Lodge Orchard, solar isn't political, it’s sensible. It can be a business decision to reduce energy costs, or an environmental decision to reduce emissions. Everyone wins. And it seems Australia is winning the most. 

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Australia just hit the four million mark with solar installations. Just so you understand how remarkable that is, it’s double the number of occupied homes in all of New Zealand, so if any of the incumbents here say that too much rooftop solar will be too hard to manage, just tell them to look next door. 

• Read Mike Casey’s opinion piece asking New Zealanders to put their rooftops to work. 

In Western Australia, the state recently provided over 80% of the total energy through distributed solar, “with natural gas and coal both reduced to shares of 8.6% and 8.3% respectively.” 

Elon Musk celebrated this achievement with a post on X and, given Tesla’s interests in EVs and distributed energy, here’s hoping his close connection to the incoming Trump administration means these areas ciontinue to be seen as sensible. 

We've mentioned Texas before because it is a good example of a red state that has seen the light and is investing heavily in solar while continuing to invest heavily in oil, gas and wind. Now it has taken over from California when it comes to utility scale solar and it is ramping up the batteries as well.

Round of applause

One of the lines we use to try and convince those on the sceptical side of the fence is to electrify everything you don’t love (we are yet to meet anyone who loves their water heater). But you can also electrify a lot of the things you do love and it doesn't require any sacrifice. 

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Coldplay, which is performing three shows in Auckland, has tried to electrify its live shows and has reduced emissions by 59% since the last tour. Some offsets are used, but “our stage production is now powered almost entirely with renewable, super-low emission energy. We avoid fossil fuels wherever possible." 

“We install solar photovoltaic panels in the build-up to each show - behind the stage and on top of PA and delay towers. The show batteries start charging as soon as we arrive at the venue. In partnership with BMW, we have developed the first ever mobile, rechargeable show battery - made from recyclable BMW i3 batteries - which can now power 100% of our show with renewable energy wherever we take it. We have a number of other batteries in use that we can charge from multiple sources including renewable diesel made from waste, such as used cooking oil, solar energy and even kinetic energy from the fans.” 

EV does it, Mike

We couldn’t help but notice Mike Hosking’s opinion piece on EVs recently that questioned their popularity and wondered what the sector would do about the anti-EV (but pro-Musk) Trump. Humans are short-term creatures and there is no doubt the growth rate of the EV sector has slowed, but a declining growth rate means demand is still growing. Economics also tend to win out over politics in the end and the reason they're growing in popularity is because they're coming down in price and they're cheaper to run than fossil fuel cars.

This is why it's important to look at long term global trends like the below from Bloomberg. 

China continues to dominate, but all of the slices are getting bigger.

In New Zealand, there are now over 110,000 light EVs on our roads. And in the UK, EV registrations for October were at a near record high, clocking in at 30% of the total. 

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I you want to hold out for something a bit more unuque, this is what Kia wants us to be doing on the wknd in the future. 

Racing this time

Counties Energy gained some attention earlier in the year with its re-used Nissan Leaf battery charging station. Now it’s taking the innovation into the classroom with its solar cars grand prix project. 

In the spirit of the Lightfoot above, “the programme offers local schools the opportunity to teach key concepts such as energy transformation, movement and forces, all through the creation of solar-powered cars”. 

Aimed at reaching 4800 students across 120 classrooms this year, the programme is targeted at Year 4 to Year 10 students in primary, intermediate and high schools. Students build wooden cars from scratch and attach solar units to the roof, learning how solar energy is converted into kinetic energy.

Any slot car aficionado will tell you about the impressive performance of electric vehicles. And this couple found a way to use fold-out panels to drive 38,000 km across Africa in an EV. Perhaps the next generation of innovation will be all about solar powered electric vehicles. 

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