Mike Casey: Rewiring Aotearoa CEO says shift away from fossil fuel doesn't have to happen all at once

The idea of reducing reliance on fossil fuels, including the Green Party's new electrification plan, is often met with criticism that not everything can be switched over, but Mike Casey, CEO of Rewiring Aotearoa, says that isn't the immediate goal. 

"My focus is mainly on households at the moment, which is basically gas in the households and also electric vehicles, putting solar on the roof and batteries in the garage. We've got to start somewhere," Casey told Mike Hosking.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, the call went out over the weekend from the Greens,
of course, to build a mass national electrification plan. Trouble
is not a lot of ships or planes or trucks
run on electricity. Of course, Now Mike Casey is with
rewiring our TI Rah, he's the boss and he's with us.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Morning, Mike, how are you made very well?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Indeed, I've been thinking about you in the last few
weeks and I thought you'll turn up on the show eventually.
So there are no pipes that aren't made of oil,
and there are no ships that run on batteries. So
what can we do more electricity wise that will help
us out in a future epic fury?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
First of all, you're one hundred percent right that not
everything can be electrified with today's technology. We've got about
ten million machines in New Zealand. Eight hundred thousand cannot
be electrified. Yet about a million can be electrified with
a little bit of effort, and about eight and a
half a million machines can be electrified with today's technology.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
But you would agree that most of the economy, and
this has been the big learning out of the war,
most of the economy runs on oil. Rightly, or wrongly.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Three percent of our economy runs on energy fossil fuels
that are largely sourced from overseas. So yeah, really really expensive,
and we have a hell of a long way to go.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
And so what could you reduce if you had a
magic wand what could you reduce that seventy three percent
by tomorrow?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
To be honest, I couldn't tell you offhand exactly what
that would be. But my focus is mainly on households
at the moment, which is basically gas in the households
and also electrical vehicles putting solar on the roof and
batteries in the garage. We've got to start somewhere. I'm
not going to say that that's going to be a
significant dent in the overall oil consumption, but as more
and more technology comes into play, potentially we might get
that seventy three percent down something substantially. The whole point

(01:37):
at the moment really is how do we run as
much of our economy as we can off New Zealand
made energy rather than energy source from overseas.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
And the next part of the discussion I heard it
somewhere last week in Factors the moment you talk about
solar on households or batteries and stuff. If somebody wants
a loan, you know, they want the council invold or
the government involved, and they want you know, free money
or cheap money or whatever. Can it be done simply
by going, mate, put some panels on your roof. It
make sense, It's logical, and that's just a cost of
life or not.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, So the biggest issue is just the upfront capital
cost for New Zealanders. Most New Zealanders don't have fifteen
twenty thousand dollars in their back pockets, so they have
to finance solar. Financing solar is amazing because the savings
from solar will pay back the capital cost plus the
interest cost and probably still give your family about one
thousand dollars a year of additional savings. So it's absolutely awesome.

(02:25):
The green loans at the moment they are eligible, well
about twenty percent of households in New Zealand are eligible
for those green loads from the banks. What we're wanting
is other finance products in the market to basically hit
maybe up to about ninety percent. And that's that thing
called the ratepayers assistance game.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, do you reckon something material will come out of
epic fury. In other words, a lot of people went
and bought an EV. Do you think something tangible will
change out of the wall.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Well, have you bought Kate Herry V yet? I have not,
so so we're not there yet. So I think my
life will be complete the moment that my costing buy
is an electric vehicle. And there's an electric vehicle on
the Hoskeey Hawksbury house and maybe some solour on the roof.
So we're obviously not there yet. But you know, if
that can happen in your household, then I think most
New Zealand households can probably do it.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Good on us to catch up, Mike Coci, you're rewiring
Artiro from the Beautiful Central Otago. For more from the
Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
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