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On The Detail podcast, Sharon Brettkelly talks to Consumer's Paul Fuge about dwindling gas reserves, rising prices and why relying on new gas discoveries is a mug's game.
"It costs more to have gas than electricity so an electricity-only house is much cheaper to run than a gas-electricity house because you can substitute all your gas appliances for electric appliances ... but you can't run a TV on gas or your lights on gas," Fuge says.
That means gas customers have to have an electricity connection, which means double the costs of the infrastructure - gas pipes and electricity lines - needed to deliver the energy to people's homes.
Gas customers are also locked out of cheaper electricity plans because most gas suppliers also demand that customers take their electricity. The companies that provide cheap electricity don't provide gas, Fuge says.
Add to that the phasing out of low electricity charges for low users, which was a benefit for gas customers.
"What that means is people's electricity connections for the low users are getting more expensive every year over five years and that disadvantages gas customers," he says.
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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