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The conflict in Iran and resulting energy crisis marks a permanent shift for New Zealand’s reliance on imported fossil fuels, an electrification advocate says.
Kiwibank Sustainable Business Leader of the Year 2026 and chief executive of Rewiring Aotearoa Mike Casey tells Q+A New Zealanders’ interest in electric alternatives have soared in the past few weeks as the price of fuel continues to ratchet up.
Last week was the biggest week for electric vehicle sales since the week before the Clean Car Discount was scrapped in 2023.
Down on Casey’s fully-electric cherry orchard in Central Otago, his neighbour has been talking about borrowing his electric tractor if the diesel price continues to rise.
“I think more and more New Zealanders are starting to realise the future of everything is in New Zealand-made energy,” he said.
Casey said New Zealand is home to 10 million machines that are reliant on imported fossil fuels, and not all of them are ready to make the change to electricity.
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Read moreDownloadWhen you live in a 'pocket neighbourhood', it makes sense to run on the sun and embrace electric tech - and that's exactly what the Peterborough Housing Co-op in Christchurch has done. Jim Small, a trustee for the Ōtākaro Land Trust, says the co-op has been around since the early '80s and it's "designed with the community in mind". Think shared spaces, shared gardens, cars on the outside, shared utilities and shared energy.
Read moreDownloadContact's grid-scale battery at Glenbrook is switched on and the Prime Minister talks again about 'energy independence' at the opening; how steel mills and smelters here and overseas are embracing electrons; the electric wave is a massive job creation opportunity (while imported oil does bugger all on that front) and renewable projects are set to keep New South Wales out of recession; batteries have all but displaced gas for peaks in Queensland in just a couple of years, and solar and wind overtake gas for the first time globally; data shows sales of internal combustion cars peaked in 2017 but sales of EVs more than doubled between 2022 -2025; and anyone with a heat pump is making a killing.
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