{"id":564897,"date":"2026-08-10T17:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T17:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/564897\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T17:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T17:48:15","slug":"hundreds-of-schools-to-get-solar-panels-in-30m-pilot-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/564897\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of schools to get solar panels in $30m pilot programme"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis is a smart, practical investment in both our schools and New Zealand\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Solar panels will be installed at the schools over the next three years. Up to 150 of these schools will also receive energy management systems, and selected schools will receive batteries where they are expected to deliver the greatest savings and community resilience benefits.<\/p>\n

\"EconomicEconomic Growth Minister Nicola Willis and Education Minister Erica Stanford at Meridian Energy\u2019s West Wind Farm, Makara, last week for an education announcement. Photo\/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

The Government tender process was open to solar system planners, designers and installers to deliver the programme nationwide.<\/p>\n

In June, the National party revealed an election policy<\/a> to offer low-interest loans to allow more households to install solar power technology and decrease power prices. <\/p>\n

The party, if elected, would launch the \u201chome energy fund\u201d by amending the Local Government Act and committing a one-off $7 million equity investment to secure a 20% shareholding in the new entity with the balance funded by participating councils.<\/p>\n

Overall, the policy was largely welcomed but concern was expressed over whether renters will see the benefits.<\/p>\n

The full list of the 500 schools in the pilot can be found here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis is a smart, practical investment in both our schools and New Zealand\u2019s future.\u201d Solar panels will be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[112052,1558,1667,1888,1333,7237,305,24176,78,1132,111,43,139,69,1118,107100,19723,9527,12860,3170,6649,4166,61,8238],"class_list":["post-564897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-30m","tag-been","tag-energy","tag-first","tag-get","tag-governments","tag-have","tag-hundreds","tag-in","tag-million","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-panels","tag-pilot","tag-programme","tag-revealed","tag-scheme","tag-schools","tag-solar","tag-to","tag-under"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}