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Crux talks to Mike Casey about the launch of Rewiring Aotearoa's ambitious new Queenstown Electrification Accelerator project. "The vision is big. To make Queenstown the global capital of total electrification - buses, cars, hotels, our airport, houses - and yes, even gondolas. For the region to become the world’s most electrified destination."
As Peter Newport wrote in his introductory piece:
There’s a lot of talk about electrification in Queenstown and the Southern Lakes at the moment but today something different has happened. Mike Casey, a man with a formidable business record and apparently limitless energy, has launched the Queenstown Electrification Accelerator.
The vision is big. To make Queenstown the global capital of total electrification - buses, cars, hotels, our airport, houses - and yes, even gondolas. For the region to become the world’s most electrified destination.
The QEA project has some big muscle behind it - private investors, local council and tourism agencies, the NZ Government, Mike’s organisation Rewiring Aotearoa and Ara Ake - NZ’s future energy Hub.
Most importantly Mike has the stamina and business acumen to get us all on board.
Crux is fully committed to backing the QEA project and has watched Mike turn vision into reality first with his Forest Lodge cherry farm near Cromwell and in recent times becoming NZ’s leading advocate for fundamental change in the energy sector. Mike is a successful entrepreneur who founded and then sold two major Australian companies before returning to NZ.
The new website which went live only a few hours ago presents a clear and compelling view of where the project is heading.
Financial commentator Frances Cook uses her own story to show that that an investment in solar and an EV significantly outperforms the stock market and fellow number cruncher Nadine Higgins says that if you do it right, EVs are cheaper to run and own; EV sales have climbed to their highest level since 2022 and are closing in on 2023's numbers and Go Rentals has just invested $2.3 million in some new Tesla Model Y Premiums; the gap between energy costs of diesel vans and utes and electric vans and utes is absolutely massive; solar is also going off right now, with one installer in Otago 448% above their sales target in March; Lightforce has gone back to the Barretts with a new TV ad; Wellington mayor Andrew Little explains its electrification strategy and Hutt City Council shares data showing how its fleet has gone from dirty Toyotas to cleaner EVs; Shenzen in China has electrified its public transport and taxis and that's come with big benefits - and some challenges; and a very simple illustration of the LNG terminal.
Read moreDownloadAs Minister of energy, climate and local government, Simon Watts had a great opportunity to push the country towards cheaper, cleaner and more reliable New Zealand-made energy. And that’s why we laid down a challenge and gave him the ‘MegaWatts’ moniker last year. Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey says he did some good things, like enabling more solar on farms, removing tax on solar exports, fixing onerous solar consenting requirements, putting pressure on the lines companies to pull up their socks, and getting the ball rolling on the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme. "But the LNG import terminal appears to have been a defining issue."
Read moreDownloadAfter ‘crunching the numbers’ and adding in new sources of ‘New Zealand-made energy’ to our equations, CEO Mike Casey has announced that Rewiring Aotearoa will be changing its name to Refuelling Aotearoa. There has been a huge amount of independently verified research showing electrification beats fossil fuels on economics, efficiency, emissions and energy security and that there is a huge opportunity for New Zealand to electrify, but the discovery of an infinite supply of snake oil in New Zealand has changed everything, he says.
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