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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.
The Electricity Authority recently consulted on two important issues: 1) Who is able to access rewards for supplying power at peak times. And 2) How much energy consumers can export. We have again been blown away by the response from the people of New Zealand on these important proposals, and humbled that a large number used the information provided by Rewiring as the foundation for powerful submissions. Here's our summary of the responses and our take on the consultations.
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