The Greens have launched an election energy policy, promising to help cut power bills and establish Kiwipower, a publicly owned company to deliver renewable energy — which it says the market has failed to build.
The election-year pledge from the party would create a new Crown entity to invest in renewable generation and address New Zealand’s “dry-year” problem, when low hydro lake levels and low wind drive winter energy shortfalls.
Alongside Kiwipower, the policy included zero-interest loans to install solar panels and batteries, a renters’ right to solar, legalising plug-in solar, and $200 million for community-owned renewable energy. It also pledges solar on more than half of all public homes within four years and $80 million for renewable energy for Māori housing.
The Greens join Labour and National in pitching solar ahead of November’s election, with the two bigger parties both launching energy policies in the past month.
NZ First yesterday pledged to invest in more oil and gas surveying.
Winston Peters made the announcement to nearly 400 delegates and another few hundred supporters at the launch in Auckland. (Source: 1News)
Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the plan would return control to New Zealanders.
“Two hundred thousand households are unable to afford to heat their homes while four big power companies control over 85% of the market and rake in massive profits,” she said.
“New Zealanders need a government willing to fix the real basics, and that’s what the Greens are here to do.”
In total, the party’s package carried projected operating costs of $2.1 billion and capital costs of just over $1 billion through to the end of 2031.
The party launched the plan at the Dunedin Gasworks Museum, where Swarbrick said gas “belongs in a museum” and criticised the Government’s support for an LNG terminal which she said would lock New Zealand into 15 more years of imported fossil fuels.
“KiwiPower will invest directly in new renewable generation and sort out our dry-year problem sensibly, without a billion-dollar LNG facility, and support new, independent players coming into the market,” she said.
Just 3% of New Zealand homes have solar power, far behind Australia and the US (Source: 1News)
Party co-leader Marama Davidson said the Greens plan would put ownership back in the hands of communities, with $80 million invested in renewable energy for Māori housing.
“Our plan will put solar on more than half of all public homes within four years, and invest $80 million in renewable energy for Māori housing, because tangata whenua are two to three times more likely to face energy hardship,” Davidson said.
She said the policy was about rangatiratanga over energy and reflected the party’s commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
The party says it would be funded by repurposing the coalition’s gas security fund. (Source: 1News)
The Greens said the plan, which is costed at $980 million over four years for Kiwipower alone, would be paid for by making the super-rich and corporates pay more tax.