The case for energy loans: read our latest explainer
Put your tongue on that battery, folks, because there's a groundbreaking pilot project in Australia that offers a glimpse at an electric future, a Wairarapa marae with solar and batteries is helping improve resilience after emergencies, solar farms are proving resilient to major weather events, fossil fuel gardening gear is getting the chop, golf courses are going electric and there's another beautiful electric caravan to drool over.
Postcode power
After a couple of years of behind-the-scenes work from our mates at Rewiring Australia and some pressure applied to decision makers from the local community, a ground-breaking electrification project “will offer subsidies and support to 500 households to upgrade to electric appliances” in the 2515 postcode south of Sydney.
The Electrify 2515 Community Pilot is an $11.8 million partnership between Rewiring Australia, Brighte, and Endeavour Energy with $5.4 million in federal funding through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. The project is a major step towards electrifying all Australian households to reduce energy bills and emissions and it will provide real-world data on a concentrated and rapid electrification of a community, measuring consumer behaviour, attitudes and energy bill savings.
“The pilot aims to create the electric future in a real community today,” said Dr Saul Griffith, Rewiring Australia Co-founder and Chief Scientist. “Incentives and information will support households to make wise energy choices and coordination of tradespeople will facilitate the process. Our research will uncover any barriers that make electrification harder than it should be and highlight market reforms required to make the transition economically efficient. Australia is the leading rooftop solar nation. Pilots like these will allow us to invent the clean consumer energy model for the whole world.”
Writing in The Conversation, Gill Amrstrong and Portia Odell said: "The main challenge isn’t technological – it’s social. The technology is here. Getting the social drivers and settings right, at scale, is the key. The holistic approach will demonstrate what consumers need to make the shift from gas to electricity. This includes what conversations are needed and which incentives enable all households to act in a coordinated way."
We’re starting to see some community electrification groups pop up around New Zealand because the economic and environmental benefits are so clear. But there are still barriers in the way. Our Government can remove many of them and offering finance - whether through income-contingent discounts like the 2515 project or low-interest electrification loans that will come at low or no cost to Government - needs to be part of the solution.
If you don't ask, you don't get, so let's start asking your local MPs and see if we can replicate this.
A sunny disposition
As the climate changes, New Zealand is in line for more serious weather events. Earthquakes are also a major concern in this part of the world and many are rightly worried about a big one that’s due on the Alpine Fault. Ensuring we have a robust energy system is a crucial part of the response and solar will play an important role when it comes to improving resilience.
Martinborough’s Hau Ariki Marae is an official emergency assistance centre and received funding from MBIE’s community renewable energy fund to install 68 solar panels and a battery system recently. The marae now has the lowest-cost energy for its own needs and the needs of its community and will also be able to act as a back-up if the grid goes down.
After Cyclone Gabrielle, some households with rooftop solar and batteries were able to help those without power, showing the importance of a decentralised system that doesn’t just have one point of failure.
At a larger scale, one of the benefits of solar is its modularity and the relatively easy installation in comparison to other renewable energy sources, so when there are major events it can potentially keep generating at a lower level or be fixed more rapidly.
This solar farm in Florida was badly affected by a tornado during Hurricane Milton, but overall, the solar farms in Florida proved quite resistant and largely bounced back.
As a Duke Energy rep said: "The batteries on site have not been impacted. However, we have disconnected the site from the grid until the cleanup is complete. In the coming days, whatever portion is operable will be reconnected.”
There are risks associated with increased solar roll out, and the insurance industry is looking at things like hail, fire and wind.
Cut it out
Noisy, smelly and unhealthy leaf blowers and lawnmowers are on the way out in a number of places in the US.
“A total of 26 states, plus Washington, D.C, have implemented policies restricting the use of gas lawn equipment. Gas leaf blowers are now banned in 72 municipalities spanning California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Washington, D.C. Several cities in California have completely banned all gas lawn equipment.”
All large home retailers now offer a range of impressive electric options that do the job without the negatives, and we approve of Ryobi’s recent dinosaur-themed ad that says ‘petrol power is extinct’.
In a US survey, electric garden tools were seen as a gateway drug to more electrification.
“Among the most striking findings was that people who already own electric lawn equipment and solar panels were more interested in electrifying other parts of their home — namely, their heating, water heating, and cooking — than non-owners. And sometimes by a gaping margin.”
Rub of the green
For those who need to do some more serious ‘gardening’, there are plenty of electric options now on offer, like these electric John Deere push mowers for golf greens and plenty of electric ride-ons.
The course that hosted the Olympics, Le Golf National in Paris, went on a mission to be an all-electric affair and worked closely with manufacturer Jacobsen to make it happen.
As Golf Course Superintendent, Lucas Pierre said: “The main improvement on this machine is the traction because everything is electric, and access is much easier on this machine. There are hills everywhere on this course, but when you’re going from one fairway to another, and I’ve been on the machine, you can go everywhere, and you don’t slip or get stuck. Together, the battery and traction are amazing.”
In New Zealand, there are still plenty of diesel machines on golf courses, but many of them will be due for an upgrade (we’ve heard that Waiheke Golf Course has pledged to become the country’s most sustainable and is looking at electric machines). Just as Mike Casey has proven at Forest Lodge Orchard, electric machines can not only do the job better than the fossil fuel machines, they’re likely to save a significant amount of money, especially if you can generate a lot of that electricity yourself.
Lighting the way
We’re suckers for a good looking electric machine here at Rewiring Aotearoa and many of us also love a good caravan mission. We’ve showcased the Pebble previously but the Lightship might trump it as far as electric roadtrips go.
"We have a bold vision for the future of travel where you can better connect with the outdoors and each other. Lightship’s electric travel trailers allow you to visit new corners of the world while doing your part to preserve it."
With integrated solar and electric everything, that morning cup of coffee in the campground will taste even better.
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.