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🔥➡️⚡"There's no real debate; that's sort of past. The end game is to replace molecules with electrons. You want to replace petrol, diesel, gas, LPG with electrons, which we can produce domestically. But transition is a word people really get wrong a lot of the time. Transition is exactly that. It involves a period of time when you move on, ideally on a planned basis, from where you are to where you want to be."
In the latest Listener, consultant John Kidd summed it up well in an indepth feature about New Zealand's gas situation: 'Out of gas and ideas? With gas supplies drying up, govt bets on chance instead of transition help (paywalled)'.
We completely agree with his summary and we would love to see New Zealand transition into the world's most electric economy. Electrification is the biggest productivity opportunity we have and there are billions of dollars waiting to be saved by upgrading our fossil fuel machines. The Government could be pushing much harder to unlock that opportunity and the opposition parties should be thinking hard about what they can do in this space to gain support from voters ahead of next year's election.
As the story details, gas prices are up, supplies are down, and options to switch retailers are increasingly limited. Not all gas users have electric options, especially at the bigger end of town, but many do and the technology is advancing rapidly. But one thing we are unequivocal about is that our homes should definitely not be using up the gas we have left. It is expensive (and most expensive in bottled form), it is likely to get more expensive, it is inefficient, and, when burned inside, it's dangerous.
We looked closely how we use gas now and what we can replace it with in a recent explainer. Check it out here.
If you've got solar, the best option is to use as much of it as possible to avoid high grid prices, but being paid to export energy is a nice cherry on top. It means many New Zealanders end up getting paid by their power company and shorten the payback period of their systems. Regulatory changes that meant customers would be paid more for exporting at peak times were meant to make batteries more appealing to customers and reduce the need for more investment in expensive poles and wires, but, as Marc Daalder writes in Newsroom, some retailers are not passing on the full value of those exports.
Read moreDownloadFinancial 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.
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