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Newsroom's Marc Daalder talks to Rewiring research lead Josh Ellison about our growing solar uptake and the reasons for regional variations. As he writes: "One in 27 homes now has rooftop solar, with more than 73,000 registered systems in the latest data from the Electricity Authority, which runs to the end of 2025. That represents a 15 percent increase from 2024 and follows declining solar install prices."
Ellison says affluence was one of the key drivers in solar uptake.
“That highlights the gap between how solar should be rolling out and how it is currently rolling out, which is that people who need the solar savings most are the people who don’t have the spare income to spend $20,000 on solar panels up front,” he said.
“Someone spending $20,000 on solar panels up front might save $60,000 over the life of those panels. Generally speaking, with all costs included – including finance – the savings are about $1000 a year for an average home across the country. People who need the $1000 a year of savings the most are lower-income homes, but ultimately it’s harder for them to make the upfront purchase.”
If the energy system optimised for lower household bills for consumers, the market would be incentivising home solar and batteries. Instead, the market is focused on wholesale power prices and profits for the gentailers, he said.
“If that was the optimisation that NZ Inc was going for, our energy companies would be installing solar and batteries en masse across households, but our regulatory system design creates a different incentive to that, which is why that’s not happening. And of course, it is also contributing to how much bills are rising.”
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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