The Green Party would offer homeowners a $6,000 grant and a $30,000 loan to contribute to the costs of installing solar power and making other energy efficient upgrades.
These upgrades would be tax deductible for landlords, so that people living in rental homes also get a chance to benefit from the policy.
A wider suite of policies also proposes installing solar power on 30,000 Kainga Ora homes over the next three years and funding Māori community energy providers.
James Shaw, a co-leader of the Green Party, said the proposed Clean Power Payment would save households up to $1,200 on their energy bills each year.
“People are struggling and the planet is heating at frightening speed. We can and must deal with both challenges at the same time,” he said in a press release.
“There is a clear answer staring us in the face: warm homes powered by clean, cheap, low-carbon energy, supplied straight from our roofs”.
A solar panel on every roof
Marama Davidson, also a co-leader of the party, said the policy would work in tandem with its income guarantee and rent control proposal to ensure everyone could afford a warm home.
“Everything we need to upgrade our homes exists. However, most of us do not have thousands of dollars spare to pay for things like solar panels, heat pumps, or double-glazing”.
The $6,000 grants will be offered to cover 25% of the cost of clean energy upgrades, such as installing solar power, a heat pump, better insulation, or replacing fossil fuel appliances.
The interest-free $30,000 loans could help cover the other 75% of the costs or make larger investments such as a smart-charger for electric vehicles.
Across three years, this policy would cost $3.1 billion in capital spending and $1.7 billion in operating spending (between $415m and $682m each year).
A higher carbon price flowing into the climate emergency response fund would cover these costs. The clean power payment grants would be funded from Emissions Trading Scheme revenue and administered by the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA).
The interest-free loans would be administered by regional councils, and paid back through targeted rates.
A central fund would be created by the EECA to support the loans. Regional councils would be able to access the funds and offer interest-free loans to local ratepayers.
These would be repaid through a higher rate over a 10-year term. If the home was sold before the loan had been repaid, the new owner would continue paying the voluntary targeted rates.
However, the seller could choose to settle the remaining balance as part of the transaction.
Cooking with gas
The Green Party said almost 300,000 homes use piped fossil gas for heating, cooking or hot water, and only 2% of homes have solar panels. Switching out gas for electricity in these homes would be equivalent to taking 200,000 cars off the road.
Households on the lowest incomes are currently eligible for a grant which covers 80% of the costs of insulation and heat pumps. They would remain eligible under the Green scheme.
A report written by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment said there were 110,000 households that couldn’t afford to keep their home warm enough in 2022.
However, that number has been falling steadily. The proportion of households who said heating was a major problem has dropped from 9.1% in 2013 to just 5.7% in 2022.
This trend can be seen across energy hardship survey measures—such as putting up with being cold a lot or being late with a bill at least once—which have all dropped from the high single digits to the low single digits.
But pockets of hardship still exist. Around a third of low-income households couldn’t afford to stay warm all year around and 25% had been overdue on an energy bill at least once.
The analysis also found renters were five times more likely than owner-occupiers to say they could not afford to keep their home adequately warm, and put up with feeling cold a lot to keep costs down.
Māori and Pacific households often reported double (or higher) rates of energy hardship than the total population did in the survey.
Households on the lowest incomes are currently eligible for a grant which covers 80% of the costs of insulation and heat pumps. They would remain eligible under the Green scheme.
The clean power payment would be scaled up over three years, with an initial focus on lower-income households.;
Over half of all owner occupied households would have access to grants within the next three years and the programme would be expanded until it was available to all.
The Green Party would also provide $15 million in funding over the next three years to increase the number of energy advisors and help Māori communities find energy efficiencies.
You can compare the policy positions of all parties here. This is a resource that is updated as each new policy is released.
36 Comments
However, most of us do not have thousands of dollars spare to pay for things like solar panels, heat pumps, or double-glazing
so, rather focus on some policy which will bring more opportunities to earn this money???? No, this election year, so grants and loans only on the table, pathetic. Another point showing, green energy agenda will only make current crisis worse. More loans , more loans mooooore looooans !!!!! Everyone just work for a bank .
Trying to move from gas is such a dumb idea. We are going to need every energy source we can get our hands on in the future and the electricity supply is still miles away from removing gas. Maybe when we all have at least a dozen solar panels on the roof we can limit gas to the 9kg bottle for the BBQ.
Until storage is available (either in home or at scale), too much solar is a massive risk to the grid.
Also if they really want to make a positive environmental change, the scheme should encourage use of high quality panels - at the low end of solar panels they are likely to die before they have offset the embodied carbon from their manufacturing/transport/install, especially with NZ's already pretty green generation sources.
Do you sell/install those low-end "tier 1" type panels? If so, what lifespan do you expect to get from a Jinko, Seraphim etc etc?
My understanding is that they are 5-12 year panels... Some calcs I did recently on our LG Panels was it's 8 years for them to be a net positive for the environment.
Nope, Trina.
Like I say , I haven't come across a large number of failing panels, and ,30 to 40 yo panels still producing are not uncommon.Many are replaced for no real reason often space requirements. The 25 year warranties are not a gimmick, you can expect your panels to last that long. One issue we do have, is by the time a panel fails, the original dealer/ manufacturer has disappeared, certainly invoices etc gone after 7 years.worth making secure copies of your panel purchase/ details etc.
Be honest though mate, its a whole setup that is not maintenance free. Being just connected to the grid is maintenance free, sure you get the occasional cut but that's someone else's problem. Panels are really a pain in the ass on the roof, if you had space you would have them on ground level at the optimal angle and direction and they would be very easy to work on. What's an inverter go for ? 10 years tops and I would leave batteries out of the system altogether these days and just run a grid tied inverter.
Off grid is definitely not maintenance free, and won't save you money, unless you're facing a big bill to hook up the mains.
Grid connect pretty much maintenance free, odd squirt of the hose should suffice. Inverter life could be better, but improving all the time . In 10 years time should be 1/3 the price, so even if needing replacing , will cost less.
Batteries are always going to need replacing, not going to save you money ATM, if you take replacement cost into account.
And you have to wonder how much is this regulatory requirement stopping solar from being rolled out. Surely anything on the other side of the inverter can be disconnected from the grid by the inverter safety circuitry (aka a big-ass contactor) so it shouldn't matter to the grid if you use cheap panels if you are willing to take that risk. Combine that with low feed in tariffs and it makes solar installation on the average household an expensive exercise with a very long payback, and often only useful if you use a lot of electricity during the day, ie work from home, or have a large pool you need to heat.
The panels are in arrays , parallel and series , and can potentially dump lots of amps at high voltage into a faulty panel.like i say a rare occurance but can happen.
Solar is high risk work for this reason , and idon't think the regs are excessive , nor adding to the costs significantly , on the whole.
I can get the idea of loans to assist. But I don't understand the idea of grants. Grants depend on the false idea that if the government pays for something then it's free. It does not recognise the taxpayer.
I got a government loan back in the early 70s in my new build family home. Insulation was a new idea at that time - quite radical. And I paid the loan back. A loan scheme should be self supporting.
As an aside, I have solar electricity now, and it's been marvellous.
Some good stuff, some stupid stuff.
Our mission critical action in addressing our emissions is achieving 100% renewable electricity generation.
Until we do this any move to replace fossil fuel with electricity just requires more fossil fuel (coal in Huntly god help us) to be burnt less efficiently in fossil fuel power stations. So swapping gas stoves and gas heaters which are pretty efficient at producing heat from relatively clean gas is grossly counter productive.
Insulation is one of the best investments we can make. You do not have to generate any heat from any source, if you do not loose. it. And it is a relatively low cost, long term investment that also reduces demand on the energy distribution systems.
Solar power is one of the quickest ways that we can achieve 100% renewable electricity generation. A lot of other countries have high reliance of thermal generation, this is very inflexible and slow to react to the volatility associated with wind and solar. Fortunately we have a lot of hydro generation which can react nearly instantly and also act as an nationwide battery through the hydro storage batteries. A lot more solar power on domestic roofs could be ramped up very quickly. we have existing capability to install this and that could be quickly ramped up. Solar power distributed throughout the community with intelligent load control means that the demands for extra network capacity (up to 150% extra) will be reduced and again enable us to achieve 100% renewable more quickly while minimizing hugely expensive and very slow up grades.
Why are not all new builds (domestic and non domestic) required to include solar power. The work day has a good overlap with the peak solar generation time.
One of the most important moves that could be made is to require that the buyback rates for solar energy are far more realistic. I note that in areas where Octapus Energy operate it is possible to sell generation back to the grid at 17 cents per unit and buy it back at night for 15 cents per unit.
Chris M. Great to see comment like this from you.
Our rural road with some 30 houses would / does place big demands on the grid without solar .For example we could all switch on our electric heaters at the same time. Spike.
Distributed generation can do a lot of smoothing of grid demand. A lot, but not all of it of course.
We have a lot of solar around however. If we all had it with some storage, and set up a smart neighbourhood share system. Sharing between us. (good law and IT required) then I see we would generate fewer spikes.
Then you have the town and the region possibilities.
Excellent policy. Making quality of life better and essentials such as power more affordable.
Distributed generation like solar PV is the very definition of a fairer and cleaner future, and should not be the preserve of folks with a spare $20k to put panels on their McMansion.
With respect, that's incorrect.
We are looking at events overtaking much which has been taken (recently) for granted.
Check out The Great Simplification.com
I suspect that somewhere not far past 2030, we'll be struggling to maintain grid supply, and many areas will be going it alone. In more ways than just energy.
a good plan unless you own electricity producing companies that you receive dividends from to pay for your pet projects, oh wait shite do we oh no opps
The annual combined profits of Genesis, Meridian and Mercury to the end of June 2022 totalled $1.35 billion, which was more than double their combined profits from the previous year.
While we do need to shift to distributed generation like solar and providing incentives is a good move, are there proposals for distributed storage to improve resilience and reduce peak loads on our networks, or for electricity companies to provide realistic returns to owners on grid-tied systems?
It just doesn't look like cohesive thinking, and seems to increase dependence on a centrally-controlled network. The Greens, of all people, should be capable of better than this.
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