Chlöe Swarbrick: Green co-leader on Kiwipower energy policy

Today the Green Party announced their new energy policy to build a publicly owned electricity company called Kiwipower.

The policy has a proposed $980 million four-year appropriation with the goal of cutting power bills and expanding renewable energy.

"It's creating something called firming, which effectively is the power that kind of rumbles on in the background and is constant," Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick told Heather du Plessis-Allan.

"These are the kinds of investments that are necessary for the sake of creating that secure and resilient energy system."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, the Greens have released their energy policy heading into
the election. It includes the establishment of Kiwi Power, which
is a taxpayer funded power company focused on bringing prices
down and speeding up electrification. Chloe Swalbrick is obviously co
leader of the Greenshie, Chloe.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
How are you?

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'm very well, thank you. Now, how is it that
you're setting up a power company when all the other
power companies are returning a dividend? The one that you're
going to set up is going to cost a billion
dollars to run.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
So what this does is address the dry year problem,
which funnily in US we have a consensus on across Parliament. However,
the coalition government seeming solution is to throw an extra
billion dollars plus at an LNG import facility, which we
can find not one been an expert or economist or
even their own official government advisors that agree that it's

(00:45):
actually a good idea. What qu Power will do is
fill that gap which has been identified by the Lakes
of the OECD and the Frontier Report here at home,
which says that the major barrier to US establishing a
resilient and secure law call energy system and one that's affordable.
Is that firming or backup power. So qpower is all

(01:06):
about filling that gap and creating that renewable energy generation
which the private market has clearly failed to be.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Okay, So am I right in thinking this. What you're
doing is you're creating a whole lot of extra generation.
That's what's costing us.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's creating something called firming, which effectively is the power
that kind of rumbles on in the background and is constant.
So think about it, the likes of our hydro or
our geosermal assets. So these are the kinds of investments
that are necessary for sake of creating that secure and
resilient energy system. And you can, if you wanted to
pull the trigger and take it from fossil fuels. But

(01:42):
fossil fuels are a bit of a ticking time bomb.
It's kind of a process of continuing to feed the beast,
and each time you do so, you get to restart
the clock on that time bomb countdown timer. But ultimately,
the Greens have always proposed that we need to diffuse
the dam bomb, which is where renewable energy generation comes in.
And that's precisely the point of keep with our.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Okay now, you're going to pay for it with the
wealth tax, but you're not going to get the wealth
tax over the line. So if you can't get the
wealth tax over the line, you can't get this over
the line. Right.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Well, let's be really clear about the facts. What we're
proposing here is a policy package which not only alongside
KII power, will also allow for more community owned generation
and for solar on household's roofs all across this country.
That package will cost approximately three billion dollars. And let's
not forget that that is precisely the same price tag

(02:30):
that was attached to this government's landlord tax cuts, which
it managed to find down the back of the couch.
The fact of the matter is whether politicians can always
find money for things that are priorities. And we cannot
see any higher priority the selection than on renewable, affordable
energy generation that secures our resilience, lowers household bills, and

(02:51):
also make sure that we protect jobs into the future.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, listen, I remain confused about something, okay, which is
that you're proposing to use solar and wind for firming power.
Are you?

Speaker 2 (03:03):
No, The solar is not for firming power, nor is
the wind it is hydro and it is geothermal, which are.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Okay, So are you proposing to build another hydro dam?

Speaker 2 (03:13):
There is the potential that hydro can be explored, and
I think this is also something really important to understand.
What we're looking at is not just know we are
learning from history in terms of where you know in
the past future previous generations have invested our collective resources
and building infrastructure that has formed the basis of our
energy system, which unfortunately two national governments have sold off

(03:34):
the parts.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
But anyway, putting that to one, where would where would
where would you put another dam?

Speaker 2 (03:40):
So this is where it's important to realize that what
we're doing is not the same kind of fink big
projects that we did back in the Mold doone era.
There is the opportunity for a lot of micro kinds
of projects, the likes of super geo thermal and of
course for hydro projects. But this is also where I
think it's important to understand that the kinds of controversial
projects that are currently being pushed through against community will

(04:04):
are the kinds of projects that happen on a piecemeal
basis when you do not have a national plan or
a body that is charged with looking at the most rational,
evidence based places to put these projects. So I actually
think the politicians need to get out of the way
and charge an entity up that is capable of looking
across the entire country at what makes the most sense
with regard to return on investment for renewable energy generation,

(04:26):
because ultimately this is not just green logic, this is
economic common.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Sense, all right, Chloe, Thanks very much, mate, appreciated. Chloe Swarbrick,
Green's co leader. For more from Heather duplessy Ellen Drive,
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