Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey believes its submission had an impact on some amendments, but there are a few important aspects still missing from the plan and he believes we need to focus on the easiest emissions reductions first.

“The easiest thing we can do is help New Zealanders upgrade the small fossil fuel machines in homes, businesses and farms to more efficient electric alternatives and power them with renewable energy from the grid, rooftop solar and batteries. These machines account for approximately 25% of our gross emissions and they could be replaced today.” 

The plan to double renewable electricity generation and create a network of 10,000 EV chargers is positive, but electrification of light transport, which is responsible for 63 per cent of transport emissions, will have a large impact and that’s where the focus should be. 

“New Zealand is in a strong position to decarbonise transport through electrification,” the ERP2 document said. “Making clean energy accessible and enabling electric vehicle (EV) uptake via improved charging infrastructure will remove some non-market barriers to uptake.”

“A lot of the electricity we need could come from the rooftops of our homes and farms, and it will be the cheapest electricity available to the customer. It’s also good to see some significant changes announced by Energy Minister Simeon Brown recently that aim to cut red tape as that will bring the costs down further and strengthen the economic argument for rooftop solar and batteries.” 

While the fast charging network is important, especially for longer trips and for those without offstreet parking, Casey says we need to focus on rolling out more convenient slow chargers through communities (supermarkets, beaches, parks, workplaces etc). 

“These are much cheaper to build, and have minimal impact on electricity networks compared to fast chargers so it’s good to see that a range of solutions is included in the plan. There are often times we park our car for hours at a time, maybe for an appointment, to visit a friend or to enjoy a holiday activity. These are times when we don't need to charge fast, but it's convenient to charge slow.” 

Rewiring Aotearoa was also pleased to see a focus on sustainable finance and Casey says if the Government is looking to reduce emissions in cost-effective ways, remove barriers to investment in low-emissions technologies like renewable energy, and get businesses and households to take actions that have the greatest impact, then giving New Zealanders access to electrification loans that could be tied to property is essential. 

Rewiring Aotearoa is currently working on a finance proposal that will open up the cost-savings and emissions reductions of electric technology to all. 

“We’re looking forward to sharing this with Minister Watts in the new year, but access to sustainable finance can’t just be for the big guys to build big power stations or the EDBs to build poles and wires. It also needs to be available to households, businesses and farms so they can rapidly reduce their fossil fuel consumption through electrification. One of the biggest barriers to adoption is the higher upfront costs of electric technology. We’re hopeful that the Government will consider our ideas to help New Zealanders - and especially low-income families - swap fuel for finance, reap the long-term savings and help us hit our emissions budgets. Importantly, this can be done affordably.”

Grants certainly help drive demand so Casey believes there is a place for them to augment loans. 

“I received a demonstration grant from EECA to bring in New Zealand’s first electric tractor and it’s good to see some budget set aside to promote adoption of new technology or retrofitting of fossil fuel machines through the Low Emissions Heavy Vehicle Fund. There are now five electric tractors in the country as a result of EECA’s support for early adopters.”

As weather events become more severe and common, there’s an obvious focus on resilience and on finding innovative ways to store and distribute locally generated electricity.

“A distributed system is inherently more resilient because there is not just one point of failure,” says Casey. “And it’s encouraging to see the focus on battery storage, paying customers for contributing to the energy system, and smart chargers for EVs. The work by the Energy Competition Taskforce will also help to level the playing field with symmetrical export tariffs at peak times and fairer export rates more generally.” 

As the document said: “Such advances help manage intermittent wind- and solar-generated electricity and continue our energy decarbonisation.”

Around 70 per cent of the buildings that will exist in New Zealand in 2050 have already been built, it says, so making it easier to retrofit buildings to improve energy efficiency and reduce operational emissions is essential.

“People often think energy efficiency is about using less electricity, but it’s actually about using the right kind of energy. Electrification is the energy efficiency we have always been looking for because these electric machines are much better at using energy to do the same job. For example, an electric home with an EV uses around two-thirds less energy than a fossil fuel home with a petrol car, and that adds up to big savings and emissions reductions, so we need to make it easy for homes to go electric.”

Rewiring Aotearoa doesn’t agree with the reliance on carbon capture and storage to meet our targets. 

“The main thing is to stop producing carbon and we can do that by electrifying everything, like we have done on our orchard in Cromwell. Carbon capture is unproven so we should not rely on it to hit our targets, but investing in new ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere is still a positive step and new carbon removal technology could eventually help us become a net negative nation as long as we focus on reducing fossil fuel use in homes, businesses and farms and on the roads.” 

Casey says gas or LNG may be needed as a transition fuel for generation and for some industries, but it shouldn’t be seen as a long-term solution. 

“We want the Government to actually do the modelling to understand how far rooftop solar, batteries and having customers become part of our energy infrastructure can take us. In a plan about reducing emissions, it is strange how much talk there is about making it easier to get and burn gas and woody biomass energy.” 

As the Investing in Tomorrow report showed, upgrading the small fossil fuel machines to electric equivalents in New Zealand homes could significantly reduce emissions and save around $11 billion a year by 2040.  

“Most of the electric technology we need is available right now and reducing fossil fuel use can save the country billions every year. Solving climate change should be seen as a generational opportunity to invest, not a cost to bear. ERP2 goes some of the way, but we need more focus on reducing fossil fuel use and we need to go faster.”

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