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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.
Electric homes and EVs show their worth once again by providing resilience during the recent storms; savvy landlords are installing solar and upgrading gas to electricity to help tenants - and themselves; Basis founder Danny Purcell shares some impressive numbers from his smart panel experimentation; Uber goes from green to electric as it pushes for a zero-emissions mobility platform; Air New Zealand's electric plane and airports investing in solar; and 'transcendent mobility' from Rivian's e-bike spinoff.
Read moreDownloadThe Heat Pump Suppliers Association (HPSA) has responded to Castalia's 'Switching off the gas distribution network: Consumer, network, and emissions impacts' for the Gas Industry Co and its conclusions are similar to those of Rewiring Aotearoa's.
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