The case for energy loans: read our latest explainer
Newsroom journalist Marc Daalder, who was facilitating the discussion on the first day of the Electrify Queenstown conference, reports on the Government's active consideration of one of the most critical proposals in Rewiring Aotearoa's manifesto: electrification loans (and not just for solar) for everyone.
As he wrote:
A new policy manifesto from electrification advocacy group Rewiring Aotearoa has notched a success already, with Energy Minister Simon Watts confirming he’s open to adopting one of its most critical proposals.
Nearly 60 policies are included in Rewiring’s roadmap to electrifying New Zealand, with each ranked on a 1-10 scale from lower to higher impact. The organisation has found electrifying the 84 percent of fossil fuelled machines in New Zealand which are economically and technology viable to electrify could save Kiwis $29 million a day by 2040.
The only policy ranked a 10 is making electrification loans accessible to everyone – with a specific idea mooted to leverage the high-quality credit rating of councils to access low-interest finance from capital markets, without the debt ending up on council balance sheets.
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.
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