July 7, 2024 • 13 mins
Each year around 40,000 New Zealanders are disconnected from the power supply for non-payment, according to Consumer NZ.
They are surviving winter in cold, dark homes without access to a warm shower or a homecooked meal – sometimes for months at a time.
It comes at a time when the main players in the power business are making huge profits - including charging hundreds for reconnections done by the touch of a button.
So how do we ensure that the lights can stay on for everyone?
Today on The Front Page, as part of the Herald's Power to the People series, we talk with senior Research Fellow at University of Otago’s Department of Public Health, Kimberley O'Sullivan.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer: Paddy Fox
Producer: Ethan Sills
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Kielda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Each year,
around forty thousand New Zealanders are disconnected from the power
supply for non payment. According to Consumer and Z they
(00:27):
are surviving winter in cold, dark homes without access to
a warm shower or a home cooked meal, sometimes for
months at a time. It comes at a time when
the main players in the power business are making huge profits,
including charging hundreds for reconnections done by the touch of
a button. So how do we ensure that the lights
(00:49):
can stay on for everyone?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Today?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
On the Front Page. Senior Research fellow at University of
Otago's Department of Public Health, Kimberly O'Sullivan Kimberlieve, how extreme
is the issue of energy hardship in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Well, energy hardship is a really complex problem, and it's
caused by a big combination of housing quality, where you live,
how you pay for energy, what your household income is,
and who lives at home what energy they need to
use to keep healthy and comfortable. So that's why it's
really hard to measure, because we can't really just ask
(01:31):
one single question to understand how big the issue is.
But from our interview and survey studies, as well as
some research looking at electricity expenditure, we know that some
people will ration energy severely rather than spend more, and
others will go into debt. And due to the inefficiency
of their homes, some people won't be able to get
(01:53):
warm even if they do spend a lot. So using
different estimates, we found about a quarter of the population
we're experiencing energy hardship. Based on calculations about how much
households would need to spend on electricity to keep homes
to the minimum eighteen degree temperature recommended by the World
Health Organization for Protecting Health, and our more recent estimates.
(02:16):
Depending on how we measure energy hatship, the number ranges
from about eighteen to thirty percent of households.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
You've been studying this for some years, hey, and I've
been to the homes of those who have actually lost power.
What sort of conditions are they living in?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So we see a range of things. So cutting back
on heating is very common. Other things like not using
electricity when the children go out to school, so parients
or caregivers might be sitting at home during the day,
but they won't use any electricity, they won't use any heating,
they'll save that up for when the kids come home.
(02:53):
They've seen extreme rationing on hot water, so some people
will switch off their hot water cylinder because they've worked
out that if they have a shower and then they
switch off their cylinder for the next few days and
just use whatever is left and then switch it back
on maybe four days later and have another hot shower,
(03:16):
that will be cheaper for them in the longer run.
So sometimes people do that. Generally, people prioritize keeping the
lights on because you know, if the lights go off,
then the neighbors can see that you're struggling. But if
you can keep the lights on it, and if you
can do the very very basic things like that, then
people don't have to be so fuck am I shy
(03:40):
about people knowing about this. There's a lot of people
that feel really ashamed of not having enough electricity at home.
One thing that people do is they all crowd into
the living room and just heat up the living room together,
and that functional overcrowding with everybody all together yeather or
(04:00):
even sleeping in the living room means that it's easier
for people to pass on colds and respiratory illness among
the family, even though everyone feels a bit warmer and
things can get a bit tense. So teenagers have told
us that's a bit hard when they can't you spend
time in their rooms as well.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
And I imagine this isn't a new issue either, is it?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
And no, this isn't. This is something that's been going
on for a long time. And I think the improvements
that we're making are very slow.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
And when you think about having to have a fun
dinner of sandwiches and cereal because you're trying to save
money to have power to keep them warm through the night,
like that sounds like a lovely story to a lot
of people, and it might even be Tarcherking, But for her,
it's an absolute reality. What the story highlights is the
impact that not having power has.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
What are some ways that people are almost punished when
their power is cut off from power companies. I understand
you almost get charged extra for reconnecting.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, that's right. So there are disconnection fees for a
cost to the electricity company turning off your power if
you have an outstanding bill and you get disconnected, and
then there are often reconnection fees for having it turned
back on, and those charges are really variable across different companies.
(05:25):
And then also if you're using prepay metering, sometimes there
are charges for checking the balance or topping that up
as well. My view is that all of these charges
are really quite unfair and they hurt the people who
need support the most.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Have you spoken to officials about this in your research?
What has their response been.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yes, we've spoken to officials. We've spoken with electricity companies too.
I would say that there's a growing understanding of the
impact of these kinds of fees, and there's some movement
towards reducing or even eliminating them. I would really like
to see these eliminated and absorbed into the business costs
of running an electricity retailing company, which is a company
(06:06):
that's always selling an essential service that everyone is always
going to need.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
The previous government introduced the Healthy Homes standards. Can you
remind us of what that actually mandated?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
So, I guess the key things for this conversation is
that insulation and the space heating needed to be brought
up to a certain level. It's a little early to
say exactly what the effect of the Healthy Home standards
are so far, but for homes that have had their
temperatures increased through having better heating and improve insulation, I
(06:40):
would expect to see health improvements happening right now. We
do know that there are problems with enforcing the standards
because in a tight rental market, renters do not want
to complain to their landlords, and now with no clause
of actions coming back in, people prefer not to raise
issues with their landlords about their rental housing quality so
that they have a better chance of not having to
(07:02):
move house, which is stressful and expensive for people. We
also have to remember that these are minimum standards, so
homes that meet the Healthy Home standards do not have
to meet the minimum standards of the Building Code for
new homes. So it's critical that we just keep raising
the bar so that our housing needs less heating to
keep us warm and healthy.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
How important is it that we continue to build houses
to a quality standard to keep them warm.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Our housing is relatively poor quality and our building standards
are some of the weakest in the OECD. So when
we measure indoor temperatures, what we find is that the
indoor temperatures in new Zealand homes are really affected and
tied quite closely what's happening with the outdoor temperatures. Our
(08:02):
homes should be able to offer us better protection from
the weather. We have the technology to be able to
build to a much higher standard than the minimum Building
Code standard, and if we continue to raise our expectations
of what our homes can do for us, and keep
(08:24):
raising those standards, then we should be able to kind
of build this problem out.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, why does it seem like it's such a huge
issue in New Zealand And that's a really good question.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
I'm not sure why we for so long haven't really
valued properly the importance of being warm at home. And
one of my frustrations is that when we look at
the housing market, it seems often like we put more
(08:58):
value on a nice done up kitchen or a new
bathroom instead of is this a house that's going to
be able to keep us warm in the winter and
cool in the summer. And so one thing that we
could do around that would be to introduce energy performance
certificates that are used in some other countries, and these
(09:19):
would help to tell people if they buy this house
or if they rent this house, it's going to cost
about this much to run it and to keep it
to a comfortable and healthy temperature. I would really like
to see a system like that put in place.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Is there anything else you've seen from other countries that
you'd like to see implemented here.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
There are other things that we could do to support
people that are experiencing energy hardship, things like you know
we have the winter energy payment, but perhaps looking at
other ways of charging for electricity, and there are some
examples of that starting to pop up in New Zealand.
I know we have Toast Electric in the Pornekey region
(10:02):
where they have a subsidized model for customers that are
experiencing hardship that are referred through budgeting agencies and they're
supported from the profits from regular customers, so that operates
as a not for profit system that electricity retailerant. So
that's one thing that we could try more of and
(10:26):
see how that works. And there are other things too
that other countries do, like when it is particularly cold
or particularly hot, they will have effectively a ban on
disconnections during those periods to ensure that people are able
to access heating or calling when they need it most.
To support their health at home.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Is it quite disappointing that heating your home and being
warm is classed as a nice to have?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yes, I think it is not just disappointing, but it's
also a bit of an economically silly position for us
to take in New Zealand because ultimately this results in
public costs. We see people going to hospital for housing
related illnesses that are caused by cold, damp, and moldy homes.
(11:13):
This is costing us collectively a lot of money. And
if we just supported people to be warm at home,
then it would provide them with more dignity and it
would enable them to be warm and well at home.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Previously on the front page, we've heard that New Zealand
could save a billion dollars a year from having warm,
healthy homes if homes are insulated even to what is
quite a minimum standard.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Overseas, children have fewer days of school and adults have
more time for their employment, less sick days off work
and so forth. So overall costs to society are about
a billion dollars a year.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
About right to you, I think so.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
I think currently we're saving around billion dollars a year
with programs like ECHOS Insulation program, the Healthy Home Standards
and to FUTO orders Healthy Homes initiatives. So I think
easily there's another billion dollars to be saved by doing
even more, because the things that we've done have really
been the minimum.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And Kimberly, what would you like to see changed? What
can power companies do and what can they bring to
the table to kind of alleviate this issue.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah, I think there is a lot more that we
could be doing to increase the efficiency of our homes
and build out the problem of energy hardship. And at
the same time, we could be supporting people to have
better access to electricity at home, better supporting those people
who are finding it difficult to pay their bills, and
(12:52):
we could do other things to enable people to access
off wadable renewable energy, including solar PV that would really help,
particularly for those people that are home during the day.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Thanks for joining us, Kimberly. That's it for this episode
of The Front Page. You can read more about today's
stories and extensive news coverage at enzedherld dot co dot z.
The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles with sound
engineer Patti Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the front
(13:26):
page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
Kielda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Each year,
around forty thousand New Zealanders are disconnected from the power
supply for non payment. According to Consumer and Z they
(00:27):
are surviving winter in cold, dark homes without access to
a warm shower or a home cooked meal, sometimes for
months at a time. It comes at a time when
the main players in the power business are making huge profits,
including charging hundreds for reconnections done by the touch of
a button. So how do we ensure that the lights
(00:49):
can stay on for everyone?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Today?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
On the Front Page. Senior Research fellow at University of
Otago's Department of Public Health, Kimberly O'Sullivan Kimberlieve, how extreme
is the issue of energy hardship in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Well, energy hardship is a really complex problem, and it's
caused by a big combination of housing quality, where you live,
how you pay for energy, what your household income is,
and who lives at home what energy they need to
use to keep healthy and comfortable. So that's why it's
really hard to measure, because we can't really just ask
(01:31):
one single question to understand how big the issue is.
But from our interview and survey studies, as well as
some research looking at electricity expenditure, we know that some
people will ration energy severely rather than spend more, and
others will go into debt. And due to the inefficiency
of their homes, some people won't be able to get
(01:53):
warm even if they do spend a lot. So using
different estimates, we found about a quarter of the population
we're experiencing energy hardship. Based on calculations about how much
households would need to spend on electricity to keep homes
to the minimum eighteen degree temperature recommended by the World
Health Organization for Protecting Health, and our more recent estimates.
(02:16):
Depending on how we measure energy hatship, the number ranges
from about eighteen to thirty percent of households.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
You've been studying this for some years, hey, and I've
been to the homes of those who have actually lost power.
What sort of conditions are they living in?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So we see a range of things. So cutting back
on heating is very common. Other things like not using
electricity when the children go out to school, so parients
or caregivers might be sitting at home during the day,
but they won't use any electricity, they won't use any heating,
they'll save that up for when the kids come home.
(02:53):
They've seen extreme rationing on hot water, so some people
will switch off their hot water cylinder because they've worked
out that if they have a shower and then they
switch off their cylinder for the next few days and
just use whatever is left and then switch it back
on maybe four days later and have another hot shower,
(03:16):
that will be cheaper for them in the longer run.
So sometimes people do that. Generally, people prioritize keeping the
lights on because you know, if the lights go off,
then the neighbors can see that you're struggling. But if
you can keep the lights on it, and if you
can do the very very basic things like that, then
people don't have to be so fuck am I shy
(03:40):
about people knowing about this. There's a lot of people
that feel really ashamed of not having enough electricity at home.
One thing that people do is they all crowd into
the living room and just heat up the living room together,
and that functional overcrowding with everybody all together yeather or
(04:00):
even sleeping in the living room means that it's easier
for people to pass on colds and respiratory illness among
the family, even though everyone feels a bit warmer and
things can get a bit tense. So teenagers have told
us that's a bit hard when they can't you spend
time in their rooms as well.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
And I imagine this isn't a new issue either, is it?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
And no, this isn't. This is something that's been going
on for a long time. And I think the improvements
that we're making are very slow.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
And when you think about having to have a fun
dinner of sandwiches and cereal because you're trying to save
money to have power to keep them warm through the night,
like that sounds like a lovely story to a lot
of people, and it might even be Tarcherking, But for her,
it's an absolute reality. What the story highlights is the
impact that not having power has.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
What are some ways that people are almost punished when
their power is cut off from power companies. I understand
you almost get charged extra for reconnecting.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, that's right. So there are disconnection fees for a
cost to the electricity company turning off your power if
you have an outstanding bill and you get disconnected, and
then there are often reconnection fees for having it turned
back on, and those charges are really variable across different companies.
(05:25):
And then also if you're using prepay metering, sometimes there
are charges for checking the balance or topping that up
as well. My view is that all of these charges
are really quite unfair and they hurt the people who
need support the most.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Have you spoken to officials about this in your research?
What has their response been.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yes, we've spoken to officials. We've spoken with electricity companies too.
I would say that there's a growing understanding of the
impact of these kinds of fees, and there's some movement
towards reducing or even eliminating them. I would really like
to see these eliminated and absorbed into the business costs
of running an electricity retailing company, which is a company
(06:06):
that's always selling an essential service that everyone is always
going to need.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
The previous government introduced the Healthy Homes standards. Can you
remind us of what that actually mandated?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
So, I guess the key things for this conversation is
that insulation and the space heating needed to be brought
up to a certain level. It's a little early to
say exactly what the effect of the Healthy Home standards
are so far, but for homes that have had their
temperatures increased through having better heating and improve insulation, I
(06:40):
would expect to see health improvements happening right now. We
do know that there are problems with enforcing the standards
because in a tight rental market, renters do not want
to complain to their landlords, and now with no clause
of actions coming back in, people prefer not to raise
issues with their landlords about their rental housing quality so
that they have a better chance of not having to
(07:02):
move house, which is stressful and expensive for people. We
also have to remember that these are minimum standards, so
homes that meet the Healthy Home standards do not have
to meet the minimum standards of the Building Code for
new homes. So it's critical that we just keep raising
the bar so that our housing needs less heating to
keep us warm and healthy.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
How important is it that we continue to build houses
to a quality standard to keep them warm.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Our housing is relatively poor quality and our building standards
are some of the weakest in the OECD. So when
we measure indoor temperatures, what we find is that the
indoor temperatures in new Zealand homes are really affected and
tied quite closely what's happening with the outdoor temperatures. Our
(08:02):
homes should be able to offer us better protection from
the weather. We have the technology to be able to
build to a much higher standard than the minimum Building
Code standard, and if we continue to raise our expectations
of what our homes can do for us, and keep
(08:24):
raising those standards, then we should be able to kind
of build this problem out.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, why does it seem like it's such a huge
issue in New Zealand And that's a really good question.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
I'm not sure why we for so long haven't really
valued properly the importance of being warm at home. And
one of my frustrations is that when we look at
the housing market, it seems often like we put more
(08:58):
value on a nice done up kitchen or a new
bathroom instead of is this a house that's going to
be able to keep us warm in the winter and
cool in the summer. And so one thing that we
could do around that would be to introduce energy performance
certificates that are used in some other countries, and these
(09:19):
would help to tell people if they buy this house
or if they rent this house, it's going to cost
about this much to run it and to keep it
to a comfortable and healthy temperature. I would really like
to see a system like that put in place.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Is there anything else you've seen from other countries that
you'd like to see implemented here.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
There are other things that we could do to support
people that are experiencing energy hardship, things like you know
we have the winter energy payment, but perhaps looking at
other ways of charging for electricity, and there are some
examples of that starting to pop up in New Zealand.
I know we have Toast Electric in the Pornekey region
(10:02):
where they have a subsidized model for customers that are
experiencing hardship that are referred through budgeting agencies and they're
supported from the profits from regular customers, so that operates
as a not for profit system that electricity retailerant. So
that's one thing that we could try more of and
(10:26):
see how that works. And there are other things too
that other countries do, like when it is particularly cold
or particularly hot, they will have effectively a ban on
disconnections during those periods to ensure that people are able
to access heating or calling when they need it most.
To support their health at home.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Is it quite disappointing that heating your home and being
warm is classed as a nice to have?
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yes, I think it is not just disappointing, but it's
also a bit of an economically silly position for us
to take in New Zealand because ultimately this results in
public costs. We see people going to hospital for housing
related illnesses that are caused by cold, damp, and moldy homes.
(11:13):
This is costing us collectively a lot of money. And
if we just supported people to be warm at home,
then it would provide them with more dignity and it
would enable them to be warm and well at home.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Previously on the front page, we've heard that New Zealand
could save a billion dollars a year from having warm,
healthy homes if homes are insulated even to what is
quite a minimum standard.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Overseas, children have fewer days of school and adults have
more time for their employment, less sick days off work
and so forth. So overall costs to society are about
a billion dollars a year.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
About right to you, I think so.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
I think currently we're saving around billion dollars a year
with programs like ECHOS Insulation program, the Healthy Home Standards
and to FUTO orders Healthy Homes initiatives. So I think
easily there's another billion dollars to be saved by doing
even more, because the things that we've done have really
been the minimum.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And Kimberly, what would you like to see changed? What
can power companies do and what can they bring to
the table to kind of alleviate this issue.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah, I think there is a lot more that we
could be doing to increase the efficiency of our homes
and build out the problem of energy hardship. And at
the same time, we could be supporting people to have
better access to electricity at home, better supporting those people
who are finding it difficult to pay their bills, and
(12:52):
we could do other things to enable people to access
off wadable renewable energy, including solar PV that would really help,
particularly for those people that are home during the day.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Thanks for joining us, Kimberly. That's it for this episode
of The Front Page. You can read more about today's
stories and extensive news coverage at enzedherld dot co dot z.
The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles with sound
engineer Patti Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the front
(13:26):
page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
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