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Rewiring Aotearoa's policy director Dave Karl talks to Damien Venuto about the expensive energy subscriptions most of us have to pay now and the role of solar, batteries and finance in reducing those massive costs. "Factoring in the cost of the system, Karl estimates that a family would be as much as $37,000 better off at the end of that 30-year period. And the savings would keep coming in the years that followed."
Electricity costs were up a staggering 12.2% in the December quarter, according to the latest figures from Statistics New Zealand.
The striking thing about this is that an energy bill is something we simply have to pay. It isn’t our morning coffee treat, a discretionary item we can easily opt out of buying for a few weeks.
Tinkering around the edges by reducing usage will help to moderate the bill, but it won’t make you immune to the impact of inflation. According to Karl, a better approach is to reduce your dependency on traditional energy providers.
New South Wales gets the memo about the importance of finance and announces scheme offering zero interest loans to households to upgrade to electric stuff; plug-in solar gets the tick of approval to go on sale in the UK soon and the New York Times says it could 'change America'; EVolocity takes electrification to the streets to gets the kids inspired (and eventually employed); a tour of the amazing recycling business Redwood Materials; Think Solar and BYD give it away now; and a skit that cuts close to the bone for many solar dads.
Read moreDownloadAdvances in technology and falling costs mean customer-owned solar and batteries can play a critical role in New Zealand’s energy infrastructure - improving affordability, resilience and sustainability. Multiple trading relationships (MTR) and peer-to-peer trading would enable this potential by increasing competition, customer choice, and innovation in the electricity market, unlocking greater consumer benefits from customer solar and batteries.
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