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While the potential implications of the Bill are wide-ranging, our submission has focused on the potential implications for the electrification of Aotearoa NZ if the Bill is enacted as proposed. This is pertinent to Rewiring’s work, because one of our core aims is to help reduce energy bills for customers - NZ’s households, farms, and businesses. Significant changes are needed to fix the status quo, and we are concerned that the Bill may inadvertently bake in the existing rules governing the sector.
We thought it would be helpful for us to focus on practical examples of how some provisions may play out in Aotearoa NZ’s electricity sector. The matters raised in our submission primarily relate to:
1. The provision for companies or individuals to require ‘fair compensation’ for impairment of property, which may result in unintended financial windfalls for some, and future governments being less likely to develop new policies of public benefit due to concerns about the financial risks of litigation.
2. While the Bill seeks to ensure fairness in regulatory decisions, there is a risk it may place greater emphasis on commercial impacts than on the benefits that reforms can deliver to consumers, such as lower energy costs, improved services, and increased choice.
These elements of the Bill may inadvertently impede the transition to a more localised energy system, which will result in higher costs for NZ households, businesses, and farms.
Cooking with cars at Fleet Days; 'the best petrol car has already been built, but EVs keep getting better; New York looks to improve air quality and reduce noise by electrifying its 20,000 food carts; Kea Aerospace announces a new facility to build its Atmos 2 solar-powered plane; 'green steel' gets closer with Glenbrook's electric arc furnace and local start-up Cullbeck setting up alongside; the pros and cons of replacing lithium with sodium in batteries; and 'aquavoltaics' could be a thing as a massive project in China combines an offshore solar farm with a fish farm.
Read moreDownloadPeople could find out more about potential savings and other ways to power their homes and vehicles with electricity at a first-of-a-kind community event in Nelson, supported by electrification advocacy organisation, Rewiring Aotearoa. The charity’s CEO Mike Casey said people who switched to rooftop solar currently stood to save more than $1000 net a year on their electricity bills, wherever they lived.
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