Financial adviser Nick Stewart with his solar charged fleet of EVs in Hastings. Photo / Stewart Group
Financial adviser Nick Stewart with his solar charged fleet of EVs in Hastings. Photo / Stewart Group
OPINION:
We have to decarbonise everything, the entire economy in fact. As the huge rains here and elsewhere, the record-breaking heat and drought in Europe and China suggest, it's not just a good idea but absolutely necessary. It means shifting to electricity as our main power source.
Moving to electricityfor most things won't be easy, and it is made more difficult by how entrenched fossil fuels are in New Zealand. For example, we putter around in petrol and diesel cars, because electrically powered trains and trams are hardly ever an option.
Some heavy infrastructure lifting will be required, as quickly as possible too. Transpower says that, in just 28 years' time, New Zealand will need 68 per cent more electricity on top of the approximately 9.5 giga Watt capacity that the current generators can produce.
There are renewable energy projects planned, including in Northland where Top Energy, Transpower and Northpower have received applications for up to 2 gW, which will require lines upgrades.
We don't want to end up in the same situation as the UK and Europe where power prices are spiking to painful levels, or Australia, where faith in the electricity market has vapourised.
Fresh thinking is needed here, and moves are afoot in New Zealand to update and tweak the regulatory environment to account for new technology and customers becoming electricity generators.
Hastings-based financial adviser Stewart Group has done just that, with its Te Rehe Solar Network.
Proprietor Nick Stewart said the network, which is named after a distant great-grandfather, a Ngāi Tahu rangatira, has 14 members, with four of them being generators, including his financial advisory company. The target is to be able to run at between 65 to 85 per cent Hawke's Bay sunshine by Christmas, and eventually get around 100 members for the network.
Stewart said sustainability is the main driver for the solar power generation project, with his company fleet, for example, being converted to electric vehicles.
It's one thing to make power through solar like the Stewart Group, but another to get it distributed to members in the network.
For that, Stewart Group works with Our Energy, which acts as a wholesaler for Te Rehe solar network.
The result? Power is sold at 12 cents per kilowatt hour, and a monthly $5 charge to Our Energy, which also buys excess generation and provides the LEMonade app to keep track of things. LEM stands for Local Electricity Market, incidentally.
When the skies are grey, Stewart Group does not charge its EVs at work, and there's electricity at wholesale spot prices from the grid available. This sort of hybrid model is what Our Energy chief executive John Campbell believes will succeed in the future.
Technically, there's very little work required: Campbell said that because NZ is at 85 per cent smartmeter coverage (Victoria in Australia is 100 per cent), it's a matter of changing how transactions are handled, and not installing new lines or special equipment.
Campbell explained that the past model with an ICP (Installation Control Point) tied consumers to one particular electricity retailer that they have a contractual requirement with.
This is now changing, thanks to the Government passing the Electricity Industry Amendment Bill which amazingly enough has support not just from the Greens but also Act.
Solar panel installation for Stewart Group building which is part of the Te Rehe Solar Network. Photo / Stewart Group
Through a mechanism with the prosaic Multiple Trading Relationships (MTR) name, "gensumers" can sell excess power that for example their solar installations generate. It's all in changing how power transactions work and yes, the traditional electricity industry has not been keen on the idea at all.
In fact, you can give away excess power for free if you want, or subsidise electricity charges for members in a network, like a marae in Wairarapa does, Campbell said. That ability gives a new meaning to empowering people.
Campbell compared it to having different bank accounts for personal transactions and for business ones. You can transact between the different bank accounts, as you would expect.
In the power industry, the regulation under the old regime meant you couldn't sell or share excess power with community members, as the Greens' Chlöe Swarbrick pointed out.
Minister Megan Woods is all-in with MTRs, and thinks they are an important part of the scope of what our electricity and energy systems will look like in the future.
Taking the idea further, there will no doubt be digital marketplaces set up for power trading, and Campbell mentioned the possibility of EV owners being able to sell some spare battery capacity to communities that expect a spike in demand, for example.
Working together as a community and taking a long-term view is key here, as the economics for solar, while improving rapidly, can still be challenging. The Government's excellent Gen Less site suggests that even with steep Te Tai Tokerau unit prices, my place would take eight years to break even for solar.
Taking a short-term perspective like that rather than investing in a future that could bring not just decarbonisation but also greater resilience in a climate emergency is arguably not the right thing to do.
Perhaps we should get serious about making solar while the sun shines instead, and do it as a community?
