Labour is promising two new long-term, low-interest rate schemes, kickstart subsidies and plug-in options for renters to make it easier for them to get solar power.
On Wednesday, the Labour Party announced its SolarSaver package in Auckland, with leader Chris Hipkins saying renewable energy is the cheapest form of electricity available, but too many households are locked out by the initial cost.
“SolarSaver creates a simple one-stop shop, provides affordable finance, helps renters access solar for the first time, and offers targeted grants for families who need extra support,” Hipkins says.
This is what’s in the package:
- Two new long-term, low-interest schemes: one through lines companies and another through establishing a Ratepayer Assistance Scheme
- Kickstart subsidies of up to $3000 for low and middle-income households which Labour says could cover the cost of a plug-in system
- A $30 million community battery fund (community batteries are large energy storage systems and store surplus energy which can be supplied back to the community when it’s needed)
- Labour says it would fix regulations so renters can use safe plug-in solar panels that connect to a regular power point The Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority (EECA) would help households work out what suits their home, get quotes from accredited installers, and match people with the best finance for their situation
Labour says the SolarSaver package will cost $160 million over four years and it would be funded by repurposing the Government’s Gas Security Fund.
Broken down, the cost includes $77 million in household subsidies, $30 million for community batteries, $22 million for EECA to help with its delivery.
The Crown would underwrite $20 million for lines company loans and $7 million would go towards establishing the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme. There would also be $4 million for workforce development.
If elected into Government in November's election, Labour says the subsidies, loan schemes and EECA support would be up and running within 12 months of it taking office.
‘There’s something for everyone’
Hipkins says: “Low- and middle-income households will be eligible for subsidies of up to $3,000. We'll change the rules so renters can use safe plug-in solar panels, saving an estimated $300 to $400 a year. And we'll establish a Community Battery Fund so whole neighbourhoods can share in the benefits of cheaper, cleaner energy.”
“There’s something for everyone.”
Labour energy and resources spokesperson Megan Woods says the package was designed to get cheaper electricity into more homes and help New Zealanders save money on their power bills.
"We'll introduce two new low-cost finance options because four out of five households currently cannot access a standard bank green loan."
"Lines companies will be able to offer low-cost loans where solar installations benefit the local network, while a new property-linked finance scheme will allow households to repay costs gradually through their rates bill,” Woods says.
The loan through lines companies would be paid back gradually through the property’s power bill while the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme covers solar, batteries and other things like hot water heat pumps.
Asked for more details about the loans and interest rates, Woods told interest.co.nz the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme was designed to offer rates below current bank floating rates.
"At most, lines company loans will be offered at their regulated cost of capital, currently around 6.5%," Woods says.
"EECA will work with each household to find the best option and loan term for their situation. Independent modelling from SEANZ [Sustainable Electricity Association New Zealand] and Rewiring Aotearoa shows savings of around $1000 a year under the RAS and around $750 under lines company loans, based on a 15-year loan term for a typical 8 kilowatt solar and 10 kilowatt-hour battery system. Households may also repay early at any time."
Woods says the solar rollout would create local jobs for electricians, installers and roofers.
“Labour is focused on helping New Zealanders take control of their power bills through cheaper, cleaner energy.”
'Fundamentally different than what National is offering'
National released its solar policy about two weeks ago. Asked by reporters about how voters could potentially see Labour's policy as similar or matching National's announcement, Woods says: "We haven't just taken someone else's work and put our logo on it ... We've been thinking more broadly."
While the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme was one component, Woods says Labour had been thinking about how to work with lines companies, how to broaden finance options for people and how to get more people to have solar.
Woods says Labour's package is more comprehensive and covers off every aspect. "This is fundamentally different than what National is offering."
But in a statement, National's Campaign Chair Simeon Brown, who is also the party's energy spokesperson, says Labour's announcement is essentially National's policy "but with a bigger price tag".
“They've managed to take the same idea and make taxpayers pay more for it."
What about passing a scheme now?
Asked if Labour would work with National to get some solar initiatives across the line before the election, Woods says absolutely.
"They could have at any time over the last two and a half years and we would have voted for it, as we often do."
Following Labour's announcement, Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick says with both National and Labour in support of a Ratepayer Assistance Scheme, "there's no reason we can't progress on a cross-partisan agreement to do this right now".
"The Greens have offered the National Party our 15 votes to pass this scheme since the fossil fuel crisis first hit, months ago. Now both the legacy parties are on board, why don't we just get on with formalising the agreement already locked in? Every month waiting is another month families pay more than they need to for the basics."
"Passing the scheme right now takes unnecessary point-scoring off the election table, locks in progress and puts solar panels on roofs sooner. We can then have the election contest over the things parties genuinely disagree on," Swarbrick says.
'We all have a role to play'
Electricity Retailers' and Generators' Association of New Zealand (ERGANZ) chief executive Bridget Abernethy says Labour's policy sends a positive signal and says she welcomes bipartisan support for policies that accelerate access to electricity.
“It’s great to see the two biggest political parties announce policies designed to help more Kiwis electrify, along with National’s proposed Home Energy Fund announced last month.”
Members of ERGANZ include Contact, Genesis, Mercury and Meridian.
Household electrification needs enduring policy that lasts the length of investments, Abernathy says, and ERGANZ looks forward to learning more about the measures, particularly those that may require retailer involvement.
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) has welcomed both National and Labour's solar announcements.
"We all have a role to play in making households more affordable, and the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme is one of the most effective ways to do that," LGNZ chief executive Scott Necklen says.
Speaking about Labour's announcement on Wednesday, Necklen says: “The announcement today shows the potential for central and local government to work together constructively to tackle the challenges facing Kiwis."
38 Comments
Both National & Labour say they would "fix" regulations to facilitate solar power installations (eg plugin options for renters).
I had solar installed last week. The contract & the regulations require an independent (of the installer & the lines company) electrical inspector to then inspect & certify the installation, provide a compliance certificate, including excess generation back into the grid/lines company. I'm sure there's very good reason for this regulation & question where all the qualified & experienced independent inspectors will come from to meet the politicians ambitions.
Seems a bit like offering 3 "free" doctors visits pa when access to GPs is already limited with weeks of waiting lists.
I think one of the main concerns is export to grid is done safely, so that a grid outage can be repaired without engineers getting electrocuted.
My PV system has a 'PV' power point that livens in an outage. I can pull up to 3kW from it, keep the internet, fridges etc. going. That all has to be installed 'properly'
Yes, I have that backup option as well
Plug in solar micro inverters have the usual anti-islanding features. As soon as the grid drops the inverter disconnects. There's nothing to inspect its a sealed unit that plugs into a power socket, so there's no workforce requirements.
You fail to account for those both within government and the private sector who abhor and fear change so will put regulations in to feed that fear.
I like the idea of plug-in solar. It is a cheap way of getting into solar without having to drill holes all over your roof. You could have a few panels on your deck or on your balcony etc. It also takes out the obsolescence factor out of the equation.
I have never liked the idea of investing heavily in the current solar panels because they may be obsolete within a few years. The industry is currently on a cusp of a breakthrough (perovskite-silicon tandem cells) so I want to hold off a bit longer.
The industry is currently on a cusp of a breakthrough (perovskite-silicon tandem cells) so I want to hold off a bit longer.
This could be said at any point in time. While you are “waiting” other aspects of solar installation could become less beneficial. Just installed and wish I had done it years ago. The benefits aren’t just the solar, it’s just as much about how you view energy and its consumption.
Chuckle. I'm not going to buy a Model T because one day there'll be a Prius.
Good luck with that, Jed...
Well, if you want to use than analogy, how about the major jump forward from carburetors to electronic fuel injection in vehicles?
EFI is far more reliable and economical.
There is nothing wrong with today's solar panels but you just need to time your investment the best you can.
Try seeing it in energy terms, rather than money (the reason being, money is only valid if it is backed by energy - see the link).
So: Investment?
As the EROEI - the link calls it ECOE, same thing - rises, no static energy/money comparison is valid; the energy cost will outpace from here on. That is why student loans firstly appeared, then got cranked up. That is why L.A. Rates will from here on, outpace 'incomes' exponentially. And why there will never be a 'cheaper' time to get PV than now.
You didn't look at that linked graph befroe posting, did you? :)
Attempting to time any investment is a fools game
There must be a LOT of fools on this planet then. 8.3 billion according to PDK.
Any thought being given to rates paid to homeowners of grid-tied systems for their excess power being fed back in to the heid?
At the moment they are low and better returns would be a good incentive.
There are two sides to this.
One is simple; fossil energy is leaving us in the near term (one doubling at 3% is 24 years; one doubling is the consumption of the last half of a total resource - depletion happens faster than people realise).
Two is that ex fossil energy, we won't be running BAU - nor anything like it.
But - the physical possession of PV, in particular, can soften the landing. On that basis, we cannot have enough, and now it the time to get it. Before we can't.
Just do it - it will never get cheaper. I did my first install 3.5 years ago and now have 2 houses plus industrial site done - 150kw all up - its one of the best investments I have ever made re return and ease of operation(once installed and painfully negotiating gentailers!!) as there are no people involved - anyone who has been in business employing a lot of staff will understand.
The Chinese have stopped subsiding solar panels so prices are rising.
Ive had an EV car for 7 years - no brainer on the numbers alone - Fuel and Maintenance let alone the driving experience.
I was touring the UK last month. While their arable farming is still intensive outside the big cities it was noticeable how many solar generation farms were now filling up paddocks compared with my last visit ~15 years ago.
Jack - it's not the Chinese moving the goalposts.
#327: Surplus Energy Economics | Surplus Energy Economics
Figure 2 - the left-hand one. The energy cost of energy has bottomed-out and is rising. It is an important need-to-understand point. A big part of research is working out what is driver and what is driven.
Go well
Exceedingly good link....one phrase (of many) to be considered is the following....
"It’s very important that we remember, at this point, that assets only ever command paper values, and can never be monetised in the aggregate. The only possible buyers for the entirety of the stock market, or for the whole of a nation’s housing stock, are the same people to whom these already belong."
Required reading
If solar produced cheap electricity people would be sitting at home mining bitcoin. The system costs of labour and nationals numb nutted plans are going to drive up the cost of electricity - just like it did in Germany, Australia, UK and all other countries where feel good ecoloons took over energy policy.
"Compensation costs for the curtailment of renewable energy fell by around 22 percent to 435 million euros in 2025, compared to the previous year (€554 million in 2024) ...Curtailment compensation paid to renewable energy suppliers is thus only a part of the overall grid congestion management costs. These amounted to 2.9 billion euros in 2024, the final year for which data is available."
“The government is responsible for the highest electricity prices in Europe – yet at the same time, electricity is being wasted,” Bartsch told newspaper Der Spiegel. “This absurdity, which is being borne by consumers, must come to an end.”
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/renewable-curtailment-compensation…
Germany's Chancellor Merz: "At the moment, Germany is losing between 300 and 500 jobs every single day. Every day, a double-digit number of companies file for insolvency."
https://x.com/Osint613/status/2070216745391112211
"Had Germany spent $580 billion on nuclear instead of renewables, and the fossil plant upgrades and grid expansions they require, it would have had enough energy to both replace all fossil fuels and biomass in its electricity sector and replace all of the petroleum it uses for cars and light trucks."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/09/11/had-they-b…
Dinosaur comment.
I've probably lived longer on PV, than anyone here (22 years house, 25 including liveaboard) - all offgrid.
I can report back that it isn't just 'cheaper'; it's miles cheaper. No contest.
But bitcoin is a ponzi - why would one bother wasting one's time?
I understand you are off grid so you comment is not relevant to system cost. No one is paying off grid people curtailment! It is the system cost increases that are destroying UK/German etc industry. A government should be focused on reducing system cost, so we can keep our sawmills and food processing, not increasing it with feel good subsidies. Good for you that you are off grid, but we also need cheap electricity for hospitals and industry when you venture in to town.
Let us try very slowly, to explain something.
First, look at that link I sent JL upthread.
Then ask what 'cheap' is?
The Energy Cost of Energy (otherwise EROEI) is no longer dropping and has begun to rise. Much of the churn we assembled was possible because of the surplus energy. Blaming others (a common approach) misses the real driver. How we live and what we can maintain/triage, is the only question in town.
One you don't answer. All you do is tout for, when it's boiled down, industry. Do you think your grandkids are going to thank you for piles of expended-but-still-radioactive waste?
How we live and what we can maintain/triage, is the only question in town.
Yeah, but why pretend we aren't able to leave that metaphorical town? Planetary reserves of fossil fuels depletion is only relevant if we confine ourselves to the planet.
Industrial expansion off planet is beginning, to where there is more energy available.
That is somewhat silly.
Ever asked what the energy cost is to get a kilogram out of gravitational influence? And return? Or is the energy you are going to import, weightless? Massless? Or are you staying there - wherever there is?
Industrial expansion off planet is beginning, to where there is more energy available
And how much energy do you envisage it takes to propel resources out of our atmosphere into space, gather other resources, then return, and do you envisage that the energy gained from this would be more or less than the energy expended to do this process? My bet would strongly be on a terrible return on investment for this, and a mass waste of the energy we hold on our planet.
You ignore system costs and wonder why energy costs go up. It takes a lot of resources to build a back up power station to hold in reserve for frosty nights and dunkelflaute. The irony of a PV panel advocate lecturing about waste.
Australia’s rooftop solar love affair has a dirty secret, with nearly 4 million discarded panels being sent into landfill every year.
Rooftop panels can last for more than 25 years, but those that are being scrapped to landfill are an average of eight years old, as home owners upgrade their systems to the vastly more efficient and cheaper units that are now on the market.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-dirty-secret-in-australia-s…
Producing new wafers accounts for about half the energy used to make a solar module
...Unfortunately, old wafers cannot simply be melted and re-formed into new cells. Aside from traces of silver and aluminum, they also contain dopants such as boron and phosphorus, along with a silicon nitride antireflective coating. Removing this contamination is a crucial step toward making PV recycling economically sustainable. Metallurgical-grade silicon, with a purity of about 99%, costs roughly $4 per kilogram. But solar-grade silicon has a minimum purity of 99.9999%—known as “six nines,” or 6N purity—and costs at least eight times as much.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/recycling/Solar-panels-face-recycling-c…
Tout.
Too obvious.
What is the tonnage-to-waste of fossil-dependent stuff?
Spin.
So sad.
Solar panel end of life waste is a minor fraction of the tonnage of ash waste of the coal fired plants that they replaced.
Coal ash isn't wasted - it is used for cement production. The coal industry has a plan for it's residue, unlike the solar industry who just land fill it. If ecoloons cared about waste they wouldn't have banned gas exploration.
Those in the know would know that you can get second hand panels of of gumtree in Oz for a pittance as people replace theirs, and bring them back to NZ. As these panels were bought by the owners with subsidised prices, they sell second hand for nothing, and a massive discount compared to the price in NZ that would arguably make it worthwhile getting a bunch and sending a container over the tasman. The only downside is that this could only be done for you and your mates as the health and safety ticket clippers would have a field day if you tried to on sell them for profit.
I don't see any comment from National or Labour that they are going to fund the batteries for each home to go off grid.
Those installing a few solar panels - don't expect your power bill to go down. The Electricity Authority are already rolling out "cost reflective" pricing models i.e. you are the same "cost" on the network regardless of solar panels.
As more people go off-grid, you have a smaller population paying the costs to maintain the network = higher power prices for those on grid.
Also not forgetting the costs associated with generation expansion and sweetheart deals for data centres around the country into the future.
Drive up the cost of electricity for whom?
Another German fiasco. https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/germany-demolishes-its-most-advan…
$3000 subsidy could cover the cost of a plug in system?
Please tell me why a plug in system is going to cost NZD3000? You can pick one up in the supermarket in germany for eur 199, add a 2.2kWh battery for another 299.
I agree! We can and should do all this now. No need to wait till the election. Btw Germany passed legislation in 2024 to allow connection of plug in solar panels which were heavily subsidised. The law change gave Renters the same rights. This in response to their energy crisis.
https://www.euronews.com/2026/04/07/germany-has-become-a-leader-in-plug…
This is all a bit misleading from both sides of the political aisle. Have a look at the pricing guidance being issued by the Electricity Authority - they are telling power companies to move away from variable/usage-based pricing toward fixed lines charges.
So you can reduce your grid-usage, but don't expect it to reduce what will largely become a fixed monthly bill.
They still have overhead and underground lines to maintain and someone needs to pay for it. Even the person with solar on the roof.
Only option is to go big on batteries and completely disconnect from the grid.
Exactly how I saw it, 29 years ago
:)
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