The co-op has been around since the early '80s and it's designed with the community in mind. Think shared spaces, shared gardens, cars on the outside with EV charging available, shared utilities and shared energy.

Carter says the induction cooktop took a while to get used to but it is much better than what's she had previously, both in terms of performance and safety (it's also way easier to clean).

Like a mini version of the district heating schemes sometimes seen overseas, low temperature water is pumped around all the homes and used for underfloor heating, and centralised heat pumps also produce the higher temperature water.

At a time when power bills are a major cause of stress for households, keeping them low by sharing resources is very appealing and during the summer, solar means that the power bill for all the units and a large common space is less than $1000.

The last house Carter lived in was really cold, but this one is very comfortable and the power bills are so much lower, which means there's more money to spend on food or other expenses.

"I want that for everybody ... We need to electrify. It's not a woke thing. It just makes sense ... What we're trying to do is make sure life is affordable, that people have the things they need and we use the technologies available to us, like solar, like electrifying, like hydro, and be really proud of those things."

Living in the central city means biking and public transport are possible, but for many who are reliant on cars, she says EVs are a logical way to escape the volatility of fuel prices and it's important that access is opened up to more New Zealanders.

See the full interview and all our Political Power interviews here.

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