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In a cross-submission, Rewiring Aotearoa has responded to a range of concerns raised by other submitters in the Energy Competition Task Force's consulation.
Please find below our cross-submission on some key common themes from submitters on Consultation paper - Requiring distributors to pay a rebate when consumers export electricity at peak times. These are the points where we feel particularly compelled to comment. We have included some specific quotes from submissions, but certainly not all relevant quotes.
As an overarching comment, some submissions included significant statements as if they were fact with no backing evidence. Several even noted they are aware of evidence of certain things, yet don’t provide this evidence or point to where it can be found. We recommend that the Task Force track down such evidence and confirm you are confident in this before taking any decisions based on it.
The submission focusses on the following:
1. It is good to see consumers getting their voices heard
2. Concerns of wealth transfers
3. Obsession with aggregators and control
4. Claims that batteries can’t reduce any network costs
5. Location based value and low visibility of LV network
6. Failing to undertake good consumption tariff design as excuse
8. Concerns consumers with batteries will themselves be disadvantaged by SETs
9. Correcting a few incorrect assumptions
Everyone is rocking on down to Electric Avenue today (this one online, not that other small one in Hagley Park in Christchurch), so let's ride the lightning: profits and electricity prices keep going up, as panels keep going down; a new paper puts a number on how much more homes with solar sell for; we're bottling things up with big and small batteries and they are eating into gas in Australia and California; transport emissions drop across the Tasman as a result of Government EV incentives, while HEB Construction electrifies its fleet; electrons are coming from above in China; and Xpeng announces the arrival of a crazy looking electric van/aircraft carrier.
Read moreDownloadWarren G and Nate Dogg said it best when they said: 'Regulators, mount up!' - and this week, they have.In a rare joint open letter, three different regulators - EECA (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority), the Commerce Commission and the Electricity Authority - have basically told the lines companies to pull their socks up and make the most of ‘non-network solutions’ (AKA stop building more expensive poles and wires and start looking at customers and new technology as part of the solution!).
Read moreDownload"The LNG announcement from earlier this month has set the stage: electricity, and the energy sector more broadly, is set to be a major election issue this year. Casey has compared electricity to telecommunications, an area where services have become much cheaper in the last decade with technology advancing. “There are supply challenges for the grid and natural gas, and increasing pressure to find sustainable alternatives as reliance on fossil fuels becomes less viable,” he wrote in a Newsroom piece earlier this month, heralding the “electric election”.
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