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It may sound weird (and possibly illegal) but electrifying your friends and relatives is a good option, writes Mike Casey.
It's hard to change people's perspectives, but Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey is particularly proud of the fact that he's managed to 'electrify his dad' Simon Casey, who ran as a candidate for the Act Party in the last election.
As he writes in an op-ed in The Post about what he's doing for the planet in 2025, saving money was the main motivation for dad's decision to get an EV, rooftop solar and a battery, but upgrading to electric machines has also chopped his emissions down to almost nothing. Win-win!
Wanting to save money is something most of us have in common and you can save plenty of it by electrifying your life. And if you've already done it, one of the best things you can do for the planet is to follow Mike's lead and electrify your mums, dads, siblings, cousins, friends and grumpy uncles.
"If you succeed, that is one gift that will keep on giving."
Everyone is rocking on down to Electric Avenue today (this one online, not that other small one in Hagley Park in Christchurch), so let's ride the lightning: profits and electricity prices keep going up, as panels keep going down; a new paper puts a number on how much more homes with solar sell for; we're bottling things up with big and small batteries and they are eating into gas in Australia and California; transport emissions drop across the Tasman as a result of Government EV incentives, while HEB Construction electrifies its fleet; electrons are coming from above in China; and Xpeng announces the arrival of a crazy looking electric van/aircraft carrier.
Read moreDownloadWarren G and Nate Dogg said it best when they said: 'Regulators, mount up!' - and this week, they have.In a rare joint open letter, three different regulators - EECA (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority), the Commerce Commission and the Electricity Authority - have basically told the lines companies to pull their socks up and make the most of ‘non-network solutions’ (AKA stop building more expensive poles and wires and start looking at customers and new technology as part of the solution!).
Read moreDownload"The LNG announcement from earlier this month has set the stage: electricity, and the energy sector more broadly, is set to be a major election issue this year. Casey has compared electricity to telecommunications, an area where services have become much cheaper in the last decade with technology advancing. “There are supply challenges for the grid and natural gas, and increasing pressure to find sustainable alternatives as reliance on fossil fuels becomes less viable,” he wrote in a Newsroom piece earlier this month, heralding the “electric election”.
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