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"David Seymour is ordering a review of the installation process, saying he wants to make New Zealand the easiest place in the world to switch to solar. He said just three to four percent of New Zealand households used solar, despite average power savings of about $1000 a year." Mike Casey, chief executive of Rewiring Aotearoa, said regulations needed to keep pace with technology and he was pleased to see the government looking at ways to help. "In Australia, virtual inspections allow the installs to be approved remotely and much more rapidly and other countries have centralised systems that don't require a physical visit and use an auditing process to ensure standards are being met," he said. Rewiring Aotearoa wanted to see national standards across lines companies for solar and legalisation for plug-in solar set-ups which were becoming popular overseas.
Read moreDownload the document hereWhen Mike Casey bought his house near Cromwell, it came with gas bottles on the side of the home for water and an expensive diesel system for the underfloor heating. He replaced both of them with a Steibel Eltron system and it's been saving him money ever since. As technical manager Bhawesh Singh told him at the Electrify Queenstown conference, there has been a big influx in enquiries from homes looking to get off the molecules and onto electrons.
Read moreDownloadConfidence that cutting regulations to make solar power more accessible - won't jeopardise people's safety. A new Regulation Ministry reports laid out a potential blueprint to legalise plug-in solar and reduce the time and cost of panel installation. Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey shares his thoughts with Andrew Dickens.
The burgeoning demand for solar was also a chance to address a mismatch between the numbers of training opportunities available and young people searching for work, Casey said. "The mums of New Zealand are telling me that there's not enough apprenticeships for their kids and the solar installers of New Zealand are telling me there's not enough trained people."
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