The case for energy loans: read our latest explainer
We're sparking joy this week with Saul Griffith's electric solar powered scooter, Australia and Texas hit major solar milestones, Coldplay creates a truly electric atmosphere, Mike Hosking's EV queries answered with a graph, Kia's new concept car, and Counties Energy teaches kids about solar by taking the grand prix to school.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.