Greens pledge 'Kiwipower' to boost renewables and cut power bills

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 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.

It's the latest policy salvo in an election year coloured by the fuel crisis and competing visions of how far the Government could go to help protect Kiwis' energy supply.

The Greens want Kiwipower to invest in new renewable "firming" capacity — backup power such as geothermal, batteries, biomass and pumped hydro — and contracting existing firming capacity, including from the big power companies, to make it available to independent retailers at what the party called fair and transparent prices.

Power companies would be required to provide some firming capacity to the entity.

The party also suggested zero-interest loans to install solar and batteries, a renters' right to panels, legalising plug-in solar, and $200m for community-owned renewable energy.

The Greens additionally wanted a major expansion of the government's Warmer Kiwi Homes programme. It also pledged solar panels 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 policy ahead of November's election, with the two bigger parties both launching energy pledges in the past month.

However, the scale of the party's proposals was larger and more expansive. Meanwhile, NZ First yesterday pledged to invest up to $1 billion in new oil and gas surveying.

Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick took aim at that plan at today's launch, saying fossil fuel companies had spent large amounts looking and "found next to nothing".

In total, the Greens' newly announced energy 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 argue it would be funded by a wealth tax and a rise in corporate tax rates.

Swarbrick said the plan would return control to New Zealanders.

“200,000 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.

"When the market won't deliver affordable, secure, renewable power, a responsible Government should step in. We can pay for all of this by making corporations and the super-rich pay their fair share.

"A warm, dry home powered by clean energy should be within everyone's reach. That is the country we can build, and this is how we do it."

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.

“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.

The Greens claimed a fully electric home with solar could save households up to $1000 a year on power bills, while plug-in solar for renters could save up to $350 a year, according to the party's policy document.

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.

Meanwhile, Swarbrick noted the party's long history on home heating, having worked with National in 2009 to establish a nationwide home insulation programme.

The party's proposed expansion would fund 50,000 upgrades over four years at an 80% subsidy, covering the replacement of gas heating and stoves with electric, mechanical ventilation and hot water heat pumps.

The biggest single line items in the package are the Warmer Kiwi Homes expansion, at an estimated $970 million over four years, and Kiwipower, funded at $980 million.

The Greens' policy document also puts the cost of the zero-interest solar loans scheme at about $429 million, public housing solar at $460 million, community energy at $200 million, and the Māori housing fund at $80 million.

The party released an independent review of its costings alongside the policy, carried out this month by economics consultancy Infometrics, which the Greens commissioned.

Infometrics principal economist Brad Olsen, who prepared the review, said the costings "appear to be reasonable assessments, conditional on the underpinning assumptions of each policy and commitment".

The review had not independently modelled or costed the individual proposals, instead examining the high-level assumptions behind the party's figures.

The economic consultancy said it had not assessed the wider ripple effects of the policies on the energy market, including any changes to investment behaviour or energy use, as these were secondary effects too complex to model.