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The Queenstown region has played a central role in New Zealand’s renewable energy history. And now it’s about to play an important role in the world’s renewable energy future.
The Queenstown Electrification Accelerator, conceived by think/do tank Rewiring Aotearoa and backed by Destination Queenstown, Queenstown Lakes District Council, Ara Ake and the Electricity Authority, is on a mission to create the lowest bills, lowest emissions and highest resilience for the region, and make it easy for homes and businesses to go electric.
“New Zealand is one of the first countries in the world to reach the electrification tipping point, where electric machines like heat pumps for space and hot water, electric vehicles and solar and battery systems are now cheaper to buy and run over their lifetime than fossil fuel machines,” says Rewiring Aotearoa’s CEO Mike Casey. “Queenstown Lakes is further past that tipping point because fossil fuels are even more expensive here. There’s a massive opportunity to power the local economy with cheap, locally made electrons, many of them generated via solar on rooftops, rather than expensive foreign fossil fuel molecules that come from half way around the world. This will keep money in the community, create local jobs, and hopefully make Queenstown globally recognisable as a leader in low cost, high resilience, and low emissions energy.”
Casey says demonstration projects are crucial to show people what’s possible and his all-electric orchard near Cromwell is a prime example of that. Similarly, he believes Queenstown could become a demonstration project in its own right.
“This transition to electric machines is already happening, in large part because the economics now stack up so well, but the Accelerator is all about speeding the transition up in one location through a combination of education, training, and innovation.”
The project will provide:
Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Glyn Lewers says that the project aligns strongly with Council’s long-term strategic planning.
“The Queenstown Electrification Accelerator builds directly on the direction we’ve set through Council’s Regional Deal proposal, Climate & Biodiversity Plan, Spatial Plan, and Economic Diversification Plan. These strategies share a common purpose to reduce emissions, develop future-focused communities, and strengthen our local resilience. We know energy costs are climbing, our emissions need to fall, and our power supply is vulnerable. This project tackles all three head-on. That’s what excites me, it’s practical, community-driven change, backed by strong local and national partnerships.”
Destination Queenstown’s chief executive Mat Woods says Queenstown Lakes is committed to the ambitious climate target of becoming a carbon zero visitor economy by 2030, as outlined in the region’s destination management plan.
“One of the only ways we’ll get there is to rapidly adopt existing electric technology in our homes and businesses. We need to focus on the things we can do now while the harder challenges - like aviation - continue to be worked on. There is a first mover advantage and economic benefits for the region, and it is a chance for us to create a real visionary point of difference that strengthens Queenstown’s place in the world through the energy transition.”
He says there is a lot of momentum already, as evidenced by the success of the recent three day Electrify Queenstown conference.
Regulators are also looking to help innovation in the energy system move at pace (for example, by providing exemptions from the industry Code where these are unnecessarily slowing things down); Council has committed to electrifying the expensive LPG water heating at its pool facility, which will save the community hundreds of thousands in unnecessary gas bills each year; local businesses are investigating large batteries to help deal with the area’s peak load problems and provide resilience; and it is intended that the country’s largest trial of vehicle-to-grid technology will also take place here.
Josh Ellison, Rewiring Aotearoa’s research lead, the Accelerator’s chief technology officer and Queenstown local, says it’s been uplifting to see such enthusiasm and numerous shining examples in the community of homes and businesses saving thousands on bills and then sharing what they’ve learnt.
“The future of the energy system is community-led. By replacing expensive and mostly imported fossil fuels with the lowest cost delivered electricity - rooftop solar backed up by our renewable grid - we can cut our emissions while keeping millions in our communities and creating more jobs here.”
It’s not just about Queenstown, he says; it’s also about Queenstown helping to increase national and global ambition.
“It’s about learning fast in one place so these lessons can help lower the bills of all New Zealanders and build a more productive economy. That is the win-win opportunity of electrification. Now it’s about getting on with it and making it easy for people. We need to make sure everyone has access to these benefits, including low-income homes and renters, which requires innovation in how things like solar, batteries, and EVs are deployed, access to finance, fairer electricity pricing, and making information available to consumers when they’re making purchasing decisions that lock in energy bills and emissions for many years.”
The success of an ambitious community-led electrification project in Australia - Electrify 2515 - has seen the Australian government announce plans to support similar projects in every state and territory across the country. Clearly it sees the benefits to communities of accelerating this innovation.
“The locally-based Accelerator team has been established by funding support from Rewiring Aotearoa, Destination Queenstown, QLDC, and Ara Ake and there is more local hiring ongoing,” says project chief operating officer and another Queenstown local, Dr Steve Batstone, who has decades of experience working across the New Zealand energy system. “We’re working with domestic and global tech firms and local installers to bring compelling offers to homes and businesses so they can save money from day one.”
Queenstown is also vulnerable to a significant rupture of the Alpine Fault, which could happen anytime and could cut Queenstown off from supply chains and grid electricity.
“The best energy resilience from these types of events is solar, batteries and electric vehicles in homes and businesses, which will keep the lights on and homes warm while lowering community bills.”
Batstone says the Bullendale gold mine near Queenstown was home to the Southern Hemisphere's first hydro generator, first transmission line, and what is believed to be the largest electric motor in the world at the time.
“Queenstown has led the world before on electricity with great courage and ambition, and now it has the opportunity to do it again. We’re about to send the world a postcard from an electric future with lower bills, lower emissions, and higher resilience. The goal of this project is to make that happen as fast as possible.”
In the last Electric Avenue of 2025, we look at the two biggest trends in the world of energy; the Government goes electric for its fancy fleet upgrade; Nick Offerman offers his services to a US campaign extolling the virtues of EVs; Australia shows what's possible in new homes when you add solar, batteries and smart tech; a start-up selling portable solar and battery systems that wants it to be as easy and common as wi-fi; and The Lines Company looks to put some solar on the roof of the Ōtorohanga Kiwi House.
Read moreDownloadWhen it comes to electric farming, "the numbers are becoming undeniable," says Nicholson Poultry's Jeff Collings. With 60kW of solar, a Nissan Leaf as a 'farm quad', electric mowers, an electric ute that can run a water blaster, and even a chicken manure scraper made out of a wrecked Tesla that, as Rewiring's Matt Newman says, looks a bit like something out of Mad Max, "almost everything is electric". There aren't many others in New Zealand who have gone this far down the electric road. And, with his electric Stark Varg, the fastest off-road motorbike in the world, he's obviously having plenty of fun on that road, too.
Read moreDownloadRNZ's Kate Newton reports on the "madness" of thousands of new piped gas connections being installed into houses every year, despite dwindling supplies and higher lifetime costs.
Casey said it was positive that the numbers showed people starting to leave the gas network of their own accord, but not all households were in a position to make that choice.
"If we don't plan for a decommissioning of the gas network, then it's going to be a chaotic transition, where vulnerable New Zealanders really suffer."
As the research of Rewiring and others has shown, gas is expensive, it's getting more expensive, it's terrible for your health when burned inside and there are substitutes available right now that, on average, do the same job for less money over the long run for households, would save the country billions on health costs and lost productivity, and don't pump out unnecessary emissions.
Around 300,000 homes and businesses have connections to the gas network (it’s estimated another 300,000 use more expensive bottled gas, mostly in the South Island). The number of active connections has started to decline recently and the country’s largest gas network, Vector, is forecasting no new residential or commercial connections after 2029.
Upfront capital costs are the main barrier for many homes, which is why we're working hard on a low-interest, long-term loan scheme that can be used to pay for electric upgrades, including hot water heat pumps. This would mean paying for a new thing with a loan would be cheaper than paying to run the old thing.
Read more about the scheme here.
Disconnection costs are also a major barrier. We have seen examples where households permanently disconnecting from the network have been charged between $1,000 and $2,000 to have a meter permanently removed (i.e. digging up the pipes to the road), even though it should only cost customers $200 to have the connection capped at the house.
RNZ even reported a case where a business customer was quoted $7,500 but took the case to Utilities Disputes, where complaints about disconnection costs have been rising.
The Australian Energy Regulator and the state of Victoria have now capped the disconnection fees to a few hundred dollars to stop this kind of behaviour and protect households.