Don't listen to Old Man Gas. Ditch LNG. Support New Zealand-made energy!
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.
Political Power has gone local! Dr Nick Smith, mayor of Nelson and ex-National Party minister, is an early adopter when it comes to electric machines but, through his efforts with the council and his close involvement with the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme, he's also embracing one of Rewiring's core mantras: once you've electrified your own life, electrify someone else's life, too.
Read moreDownloadWhether it's the growing number of electric buses, new electric trains for the lower North Island and City Rail Link, or new electric ferries, we love seeing more electric transport options in our big cities. It's also good to see some of our smaller cities like Palmerston North, Timaru and Nelson going electric and, as is almost always the case, the drivers reckon it's better on electrons. At the Electrify Nelson expo, we spoke with one driver Lee about the city's electric buses. And he definitely wouldn't go back to diesel.
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