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Electrify everything. Electrify everyone. Electrify New Zealand. That's Rewiring Aotearoa's vision and our CEO Mike Casey gave a condensed version of what we've done and what we're doing at our Electric Christmas party recently. As he said to a large crowd at Ecotricity, which kindly hosted the event and provided the excellent electric cake, 2024 was the year of the thinking, 2025 was the year of the doing, and 2026 will be the year of mass adoption.
This year, we counted all the country's fossil fuel machines (there are around 10 million of them and seven million are ready to electrify right now); we launched our policy manifesto and presented an achievable, affordable plan to create the world's most electric economy; we took the Kill Bills tour across the country and now have 36 community electrification groups; we've started an electrification accelerator in Queenstown that aims to become a demonstration project for the world to follow; and we have worked closely with a range of partners on the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme to ensure more New Zealanders get access to low-interest, long-term loans for electrification upgrades.
We're always fighting for the customers in the energy system (and they need more help than ever), but we're also fighting for New Zealand and we firmly believe that going electric is a massive win-win-win-win for the country. It could save us billions, slash our emissions, provide much greater resilience in emergencies and improve our energy security and we will continue to push for more ambition from our politicians as we head into next year's 'electric election'.
Thank you to all those who have chipped in to help us do this work. And thank you to all those who have electrified their own lives, attended one of our events, shared our posts, or used our information to try and educate others. It's been a real team effort.
If you'd like to donate, you can do so here.
If you've got solar, the best option is to use as much of it as possible to avoid high grid prices, but being paid to export energy is a nice cherry on top. It means many New Zealanders end up getting paid by their power company and shorten the payback period of their systems. Regulatory changes that meant customers would be paid more for exporting at peak times were meant to make batteries more appealing to customers and reduce the need for more investment in expensive poles and wires, but, as Marc Daalder writes in Newsroom, some retailers are not passing on the full value of those exports.
Read moreDownloadFinancial commentator Frances Cook uses her own story to show that that an investment in solar and an EV significantly outperforms the stock market and fellow number cruncher Nadine Higgins says that if you do it right, EVs are cheaper to run and own; EV sales have climbed to their highest level since 2022 and are closing in on 2023's numbers and Go Rentals has just invested $2.3 million in some new Tesla Model Y Premiums; the gap between energy costs of diesel vans and utes and electric vans and utes is absolutely massive; solar is also going off right now, with one installer in Otago 448% above their sales target in March; Lightforce has gone back to the Barretts with a new TV ad; Wellington mayor Andrew Little explains its electrification strategy and Hutt City Council shares data showing how its fleet has gone from dirty Toyotas to cleaner EVs; Shenzen in China has electrified its public transport and taxis and that's come with big benefits - and some challenges; and a very simple illustration of the LNG terminal.
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