10:00am: Mike Casey - CEO of Rewiring Aotearoa
Costs, Savings, and Incentives for electrification.
Mike will cover the following points:
- Economic Benefits of Electrification: Electrification can lead to significant cumulative savings for New Zealand homes and vehicles (projected at $95 billion by 2040), and lower energy bills for average homes (saving $1,000-$6,000 per year).
- Forest Lodge Orchard Case Study: This orchard demonstrates the financial benefits of electrification, showing a shift from high diesel costs to lower electric costs, with additional savings from solar and batteries, resulting in significant profit.
- Electrification Technologies & Savings: The document highlights the efficiency and cost savings of various electric technologies for homes:
- Hot Water Heat Pumps: Use 65-75% less energy, saving $4,000-$7,000 over 15 years.
- Heat Pumps (Space Heating): 3x-4x more efficient than gas heaters, saving $10,000-$16,000 over 15 years.
- Induction Cooktops: Nearly two-thirds of New Zealanders already use electric, 3x more efficient than gas, healthier.
- Electric Vehicles (EVs): Cheaper to run than petrol cars (electricity is the cheapest fuel), with significant lifetime cost and emissions savings.
- Solar Power: Rooftop solar is presented as the cheapest form of electricity for New Zealand households, with potential to significantly increase national electricity generation.
- Batteries: Batteries reduce running costs, maximize renewable energy use, improve resilience, and make households key energy infrastructure components.
- Grid Capacity: The New Zealand grid has significant unused capacity (average 38% network load), and batteries can help manage peak loads.
- Community-Led Electrification: Rewiring Aotearoa emphasizes building a network of electric communities to accelerate localized electrification through events, case studies, bulk buys, advice groups, and education programs.
- Historical Context: New Zealand has a history of "world firsts" in electricity adoption, including the first electric house, public street lights, and cherry orchard, with more innovations on the horizon (e.g., electric dairy farms, wine, kiwifruit).
11:00 am: Greg Skelton - CEO of Wellington Electricity
The Future of Your Electricity Network
12:00 noon: Ben Geisner - Founder and owner of Cogo
Smart energy upgrades for homes and vehicles
Ben will give an interactive demo of their new Home and Car Electrification tool. The free tool has been built to make it easy for NZ home and vehicle owners to understand what electrification options make sense for them, what the potential payback period could be, and connects users directly with local installers and dealers, to get the job done!
So, bring along your address and/or car licence plate, and Ben will tell you how much you can save in annual energy and petrol bills through electrification. So far, there have been over 25,000 NZers using the tool in the first few months since launch. Ben will share what are the most popular upgrades people are interested in, and the average reductions in their energy bills AND carbon footprint.
Let's go Electrify the Hutt - let's Cogo!
1:00 pm: Dr Gareth Gretton - EECA Lead Advisor - Research, Evaluation and Insights
The value of residential solar in New Zealand
2:00 pm: Tony Pearson - Managing Director at Tecnico Wind and Solar
Combining Wind and Solar for on grid and off grid systems