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With electricity prices on the up, The Spinoff harks back to Mike Casey's opinion piece in Newsroom introducing the idea of the 'electric election' and the need to get behind rooftop solar to help New Zealanders reduce their energy costs.
The fuel crisis has given new force to the arguments of electricity advocates. With petrol prices at record highs and the LNG terminal – the government’s centrepiece response to dry-year risk – now in jeopardy after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz sent LNG prices soaring, the case for rooftop solar has sharpened considerably. For proponents, the combination of an EV and solar power offers a way to decouple from both a captive electricity market and a fossil fuel economy that are simultaneously failing consumers.
Writing in Newsroom, Rewiring Aotearoa’s Mike Casey argues that the gentailers, for all their public commitments to customers, “still fight behind the scenes to maintain their advantage and keep bills high.” He is equally pointed about the government: it “should be looking out for the customer” but is also “the largest shareholder of the existing system”, creating an ongoing structural conflict. The government needs to wrestle away some of the industry’s power and “help New Zealanders take control of their own energy destiny” by throwing its support behind solar, he says.
“Anyone who keeps the price of electricity high for New Zealanders is going against our national interests”, he writes. “So fasten your seatbelt. This electric election is going to be a wild ride.”
When Mike Casey bought his house near Cromwell, it came with gas bottles on the side of the home for water and an expensive diesel system for the underfloor heating. He replaced both of them with a Steibel Eltron system and it's been saving him money ever since. As technical manager Bhawesh Singh told him at the Electrify Queenstown conference, there has been a big influx in enquiries from homes looking to get off the molecules and onto electrons.
Read moreDownloadConfidence that cutting regulations to make solar power more accessible - won't jeopardise people's safety. A new Regulation Ministry reports laid out a potential blueprint to legalise plug-in solar and reduce the time and cost of panel installation. Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey shares his thoughts with Andrew Dickens.
The burgeoning demand for solar was also a chance to address a mismatch between the numbers of training opportunities available and young people searching for work, Casey said. "The mums of New Zealand are telling me that there's not enough apprenticeships for their kids and the solar installers of New Zealand are telling me there's not enough trained people."
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