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We’re in favour of anything that speeds up solar adoption (it’s the cheapest electricity households can get, it will help generate the extra electricity we need, and it can help replace fossil fuels in the energy system), so it was good to see another positive signal from the Government yesterday. As part of a proposed range of tax changes, income tax won’t be charged on any money gained from exporting solar from residential systems.
This certainly wasn’t something stopping people from investing in solar and, for most, it was balanced out on the electricity bill. As RNZ reported, “Inland Revenue thinks tax compliance among people with solar power systems is low, perhaps because they are not aware the income should be taxable.”
It’s good to see the Government removing all sorts of potential barriers and disincentives (including issues like this that didn’t seem to be much of a problem yet) and making changes to incentivise bigger systems (like changing voltage ranges to allow for higher export limits), but there are a few other things that need to be changed if we really want to get things cranking.
The real barriers to adoption are things like a lack of access to long-term, low-interest finance and the fact that install prices here in New Zealand are around twice what they are in Australia due to excessive red tape.
If the Government really wanted to supercharge the rollout of larger solar and battery systems, we would love for this exemption to be applied to farms and commercial buildings under a certain size because exports can be a significant revenue stream and that could have a major impact on the books - and have a pretty big impact on the country’s energy system.
As Minister of energy, climate and local government, Simon Watts had a great opportunity to push the country towards cheaper, cleaner and more reliable New Zealand-made energy. And that’s why we laid down a challenge and gave him the ‘MegaWatts’ moniker last year. Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey says he did some good things, like enabling more solar on farms, removing tax on solar exports, fixing onerous solar consenting requirements, putting pressure on the lines companies to pull up their socks, and getting the ball rolling on the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme. "But the LNG import terminal appears to have been a defining issue."
Read moreDownloadAfter ‘crunching the numbers’ and adding in new sources of ‘New Zealand-made energy’ to our equations, CEO Mike Casey has announced that Rewiring Aotearoa will be changing its name to Refuelling Aotearoa. There has been a huge amount of independently verified research showing electrification beats fossil fuels on economics, efficiency, emissions and energy security and that there is a huge opportunity for New Zealand to electrify, but the discovery of an infinite supply of snake oil in New Zealand has changed everything, he says.
Read moreDownload"We’ve got fuel prices climbing towards four dollars a litre. We’ve got global instability, supply lines under pressure, and once again New Zealand is sitting here — exposed. But what’s different this time…it’s the reaction."