Operation Laser Kiwi: help us take New Zealand-made energy on the road
"Wairakei in 1958 made us one of the first countries to generate power from geothermal steam. Manapōuri came online in 1972 at a scale the demand of the day did not justify. The Waikato chain, the Clutha, the Waitaki. None of it was built to just meet the load. It was built well past it, by people comfortable being wrong for a decade in the direction of too much." That’s Anna Kominik, co-chair of Growth NZ, talking about the approach we used to take when it came to investing in electricity generation following the release of a discussion document called 'Powering a Prosperous New Zealand'.
“It follows the electricity system end-to-end, from generation to consumer. We want interlocking changes that build more clean power, more cheaply, fix market rules, connect faster.”
So what could things look like in a decade? The country's biggest power station will be on our rooftops, the biggest battery will be in our garages and driveways, and our transport sector and most of our industrial processes will be running on electrons rather than fossil fuels. That's the future energy system we need to prepare for and, as the Growth NZ document says, we won't get there by tinkering with the status quo.
"Growth NZ wants New Zealand to have one of the OECD's lowest-cost clean electricity systems: reliable through dry years, investable for the long term, affordable for households, and a foundation for new industries, jobs and prosperity."
While we don’t agree with all of the specifics in its eight step plan to produce cheaper, cleaner electricity, we do agree with a lot of it, including the idea of merging regulators and some of our 29 EDBs, assessing alternatives to new poles and wires independently, and offering fair value to homes with solar and batteries.
The current system is inefficient, there is still a clear bias towards bigness, and the rules are not keeping up with technology.
Financing for rooftop solar and batteries is also good to see because the more options that are available to homeowners and businesses to help them past the upfront costs, the better for their own bills and the wider network.
Like Growth NZ, we believe that creating and using more cheap electricity is this country's biggest prosperity, productivity and emissions reduction opportunity. Kudos for coming up with an ambitious but achievable plan to make it happen.
People installing solar power systems with batteries on their homes, hoping to avoid the disruption of a power cut, are being told to check with the installer that the battery can provide that protection.
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