Great to see Transpower release its updated paper on New Zealands energy future. So important to keep having this discussion especially when there will be many large investments in infrastructure in the coming months. We are going to be saddling the next two generations with this debt so these investment decisions need to be long term and sustainable. As always one-off investments are very hard to get right. Allowing multiple smaller investments mitigates bias and risk.
Whakamana i Te Mauri Hiko exams the potential future scenarios that may impact Aotearoa New Zealand’s energy future. Published in March 2020, it shows how accelerated electrification stands to provide a stronger, more reliable system with much lower reliance on fossil fuel imports at the same time as cutting average household energy costs.
Highlights include
- Around 40 new, grid-scale generation and batteries projects required to 2035; We have some of these announced already.
- Generation of around 95% renewable by 2035, moving to 100% by 2050 is achievable;
- Smart grid made up of millions of smart appliances and smart EV chargers plus many small scale solar photovoltaic and battery systems in 2035, easing the need for more generation and network investment;
- Around 1.5 million light electric vehicles on our roads in 2035, near 100% in 2050;
- Current coal and gas use for process heat to be around 50% electrified by 2035 with significant uptake in low temperature process heat;
- Average, two car (one an EV in 2035) household sees total energy bill cut by 25%/$1631 in 2035; and,
- Electrification and renewable generation including Solar PV can provide over 50% of the non-forestry emissions reductions required to achieve net zero carbon by 2050.
We have been advocating for the government to allow customers to redirect their Winter Energy payment to a small solar system which has more of a long term benefit while increasing jobs and reducing people’s overall power costs in winter and summer. It also encourages consumers to use power during the day to warm houses which has been shown to reduce the load at peak times.
The Winter Energy payment of $20 per week (Its currently double this) would cover payments for a 3kW system that would produce $1000 worth of savings per year at today’s average kW rate of .26 cents per kWh. After 10 years the system will be paid off the system would produce $1000 savings for the owner for the next 15 years minimum.*
We are also working with Raglan Local Energy providing an easy way for the community to buy, sell, and gift clean, local energy. This new way of selling energy locally is paying local generators (Home solar customers) 12 cents per KWh as a feed-in tariff. We will have more actual data from our customers in a later article.
We are looking forward to a renewable energy future, it would be great to see the Government do the same
- Need to cover off degradation of the panels, inverter replacement and power price increases.
- PS Credit to @Lewisindervisuals for the image
