News & Updates

We've filled our electric boots this week with more good news for EV seekers as the upfront costs keep dropping, the EV that has been around the world about 50 times, grid-scale batteries are on the rise and the world's biggest one is equal to about 130 million laptop batteries, restaurants in New Orleans are being given solar panels to help the community out in case of hurricanes, and a spicy electricity-related letter to the editor.

Saul Griffith speaks to Bernard Hickey on When the Facts Change podcast about the new paper Investing in Tomorrow. As it summarises: "Saul Griffith helped change the world a couple of years ago when he and a couple of "tech bro" mates convinced Joe Biden to rewrite the Democrats’ Green New Deal and pitch it as an Inflation Reduction Act to rewire America’s economy with renewable energy. Saul makes a pitch for Aotearoa to do the same, but much cheaper and much faster, instead of the government’s current plan to spend $1 billion importing gas over the next couple of years. He presents Rewiring Aotearoa’s paper on The Electrification Opportunity, which estimates cheaper power costs worth $10.7 billion per year by 2040.

A cornucopia of electrification optimism this week, with Ubco inking a big deal in Australia, FTN Motion also getting set to head across the Tasman, Octopus Energy's founder Greg Jackson on the new champ in energy town, David Wallace-Wells looks at what we will do with all our 'free' solar power, and Germany shows how loosening up permits for renewables has led to a huge and rapid boost of energy supply.

Farmer's Weekly editor Bryan Gibson talks to Mike Casey on the InFocus podcast about paying back the capital on a recent solar investment in five years, the changes that need to be made to the 'braided river' that is our national grid to incentivise more farms to become power plants, and the strangeness of the current system that sees fossil fuels sent from Saudi Arabia, to Singapore and then onto boats and trucks, when we could be powering our electric farm machines directly from the farm.

As we've said before, it's not just us arguing for more rooftop solar. A number of academics are onboard and Kevin Trenberth, Distinguished Scholar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the US and honorary academic at the Faculty of Science, University of Auckland, is one of them. As he says: "Germany has about 20 percent less sunshine than New Zealand, but 3.7 million solar systems generating 61 gigawatts of power (12 percent of their total energy supply). In New Zealand, there is an estimated 200 MW from rooftop solar, and all solar (not just rooftop) provides under 1 percent of New Zealand’s power. A major reason for the very low uptake of solar in New Zealand is the absence of incentives and effectively, penalties against investing in it." We're doing our best to create incentives and remove penalties by pushing for symmetrical export tariffs, where a customer is paid the same amount for any electricity that is exported from the premises at peak times as they are charged for any power they consume at peak times. If we level the playing field, customers can become part of the energy system.

Following the launch of the Investing in Tomorrow report, Nine to Noon's Kathryn Ryan spoke to Dr Saul Griffith about the massive savings opportunity that electrification presents New Zealand households and the nation as a whole, the lessons we can learn from other markets and changes we need to make to our electricity system.

"You can actually now demonstrably show that for large sections of every economy in the world, it is now cost effective to solve climate change – and that's a pretty radical new idea," says Saul Griffith.

"The principle narrative of the last few decades – that we can’t afford to solve climate change – is just not true," Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey tells Ellen Rykers for the Future Proof newsletter as the organisation launches a new report outlining the economic opportunity of electrification called Investing in Tomorrow.

August 28: Rewiring Aotearoa has welcomed the announcement of a taskforce to address issues in the electricity market but says the time for investigating is over and it is now time for action.

Alka Prasad digs into the numbers in the Investing in Tomorrow report and finds out how New Zealand could save $29 million per week just by electrifying our homes and cars.

"Combined, New Zealand homes and businesses are currently spending around $55 million every day or $20 billion per year on fossil fuels, most of which are imported," says Saul Griffith. "Approximately two-thirds of New Zealand’s total energy needs are met by burning these expensive fossil fuels. But this country is one of the first in the world to cross an ‘electrification tipping point’, where the cost of buying and financing electric machines is cheaper over the long run than using fossil fuels. That leads to savings for individual households and it could lead to huge savings for the country as a whole.”

New research from Rewiring Aotearoa shows electrification could save New Zealand households around $29 million per day by 2040 and massively reduce the country’s emissions.

More news, views and hullaballoos from the world of electrification, with a big event next week spelling out the economic opportunity for New Zealand; red states embracing solar and coppers embracing EVs in the US; Norway getting close to 100% on EVs; hydrogen cars sucking; Europe looking to the sky to get off Russian gas; and exciting news for e-bike entrepreneurs and explorers.

Rewiring Aotearoa has been advocating strongly for rooftop solar, because it's the cheapest form of delivered electricity available to New Zealanders, unlocks a lot of the savings associated with household electrification and would help deal with dry years because there's more sun when it's not raining. So it's always nice when someone agrees with you and a piece by academics Stephen Poletti, Bruce Mountain and Geoff Bertram backs our argument up. As it says: "To alleviate the energy supply shortfalls primarily attributable to low rainfall, we suggest rapidly expanding cheap solar photovoltaics (PV), specifically rooftop solar for ordinary households. Our soon-to-be-published research suggests such capacity can be expanded quickly and cheaply... we encourage the energy minister to make the expansion of rooftop solar the top option for expanding the electricity supply and tackling the gentailer power that bedevils the market. He will almost certainly find it quicker, cheaper and more popular than importing gas.":

Our ERP2 submission outlines what we think needs to be done to improve the Government's plan to reach our climate targets, electrify the Aotearoa New Zealand economy and build a fairer future energy system for New Zealanders that saves people money and does not leave anyone behind.

Batteries in homes and businesses may seem individually small, but they could have a significant impact on the security and resilience of New Zealand’s power system. For example, 120,000 homes (or 5% of households in New Zealand) with a medium-sized battery could potentially reduce the peak electricity load by as much as our largest hydro power station, Manapouri. That’s why we’re asking the powers that be for something called symmetrical export tariffs so that customers with solar and batteries are paid fairly for their contribution, the payback time will be reduced and more people will have the confidence to invest in these technologies so the price of electricity can be reduced and we can keep the lights on in the event of an emergency.

Our hydro lakes are basically like big batteries and we need to save them for when they are most needed, says Mike Casey. Currently it's the job of coal to help keep this big battery charged during a dry year and that's expensive and polluting. But when it doesn't rain it shines and between April-August, sunshine hours are, on average, 5% higher in a dry year compared to the average. 

We're all charged up this week with some more big - and magical - machines; one of the best looking caravans we've ever seen (plus some EV towing info); how the big batteries in these big machines are starting to play a role in the energy system; a solar breakthrough that might allow us to put solar cells on our clothes, mobiles or cars; and if you liked the movie Don’t Look Up, you might be into a new play at Silo Theatre called Scenes From The Climate Era. 

One's also helluva cleaner, with the average solar install potentially stopping around one metric tonne of coal from being burned at Huntly, as Mike Casey outlines in his opinion piece about the current electricity situation on Newsroom NZ. Solar is by no means a silver bullet for our energy issues, but more of it on our homes, farms and businesses means we can potentially have our cake (keep electricity prices low for New Zealanders and reduce coal use) and eat it too (give customers with solar and batteries the ability to benefit if prices stay high). There will be benefits for everyone in New Zealand if more people own their power, rather than continuing to rent it. But we need to start thinking about customers as part of the infrastructure, something that the market has not been set up to handle.

The Government has released a document outlining how it plans to meet our emissions targets. However, as stated by many climate scientists and media outlets, the combination of policies proposed in the ERP2 document will not keep New Zealand on track for Net Zero 2050, nor will they enable us to meet our third emissions budget. We want as many New Zealanders as possible to make a submission on the plan and share their main areas of concern and where they see the biggest missed opportunities. This guide will run you through the submisson process, outline our main arguments and even give you an email template to tailor.