The case for energy loans: read our latest explainer
There’s been an understandable focus on the price of electricity recently, with fears we may be in for a repeat of the wholesale debacle of 2024 as our hydro lake levels remain low. The Energy Competition Taskforce made another announcement about levelling the playing field for independent retailers and removing preferential pricing for the gentailers’ retail arms. Just like the previous announcement that talked about moves to level the playing field for customers with solar and batteries, this is another positive step towards a fairer system, but it’s not guaranteed to bring electricity prices down, as Mike Casey told Andrew Dickens on Newstalk ZB.
Many of the innovations in the energy sector come from independent retailers, so it's good that there will be fairer competition. But the future increases in our bills are likely to come from poles and wires, not generation. What is more likely to bring prices down is widespread adoption of solar and batteries, and a recent paper in Nature suggested that solar and storage would be the cheapest energy source in most of the world by 2030, with most of the switch happening by 2027. With our world-class hydro scheme, we already have a lot of the storage built, so New Zealand is in a good position in comparison to many other countries and we’re looking a gift horse in the mouth if we don’t follow the money.
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”.
Read moreDownload