What we are about to see is a huge disruption of the electricity sector. As of the end of 2022 there was 255 MW of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) solar power installed in New Zealand with 25% of it installed during 2022. As electricity retail prices rise they increasingly serve as an incentive to 'make your own' and with the price of PV (and home batteries) falling in price this becomes an ever more viable solution for those with the means to do so. The end result of this scenario is for customers to disconnect from the grid altogether with sufficient generation and storage providing them with total self sufficiency. The meagre price paid by most of our electricity providers to customers for their exported 'excess' generation is just further reason to maximise self consumption or totally turn their backs on the gen-retailers when that increasing distributed generation should be contributing to an increasing national electricity demand as electrification of homes, businesses and transportation is taken up.
But, those with limited means who have no choice but to pay whatever their electricity retailer chooses to charge are left to finance the infrastructure required to span New Zealand with less electricity transmission sold to contribute to those costs. That means that electricity unit costs must rise in order to keep the gen-retailers afloat. To further compound the problem those rising prices serve as an added incentive for self generation and so the process spirals. This situation has been the subject of much research and is referred to as the 'Electricity Utility Death Spiral'. Unless electricity suppliers wise up they're on a hiding to nowhere.
New Zealand is in a somewhat unique situation in having a huge percentage of our generating capacity coming from hydro. This presents an opportunity in that hydro lakes are essentially huge batteries able to store that potential energy until demand occurs thereby buffering the variability of solar and wind generation. Instead those hydro facilities are reputedly used to block smaller solar and wind based generating companies by suppressing demand during peak solar or wind opportunities with hydro generation.
For an international perspective of what's happening and what to expect you won't find much better info than this guy:
But, those with limited means who have no choice but to pay whatever their electricity retailer chooses to charge are left to finance the infrastructure required to span New Zealand with less electricity transmission sold to contribute to those costs. That means that electricity unit costs must rise in order to keep the gen-retailers afloat. To further compound the problem those rising prices serve as an added incentive for self generation and so the process spirals. This situation has been the subject of much research and is referred to as the 'Electricity Utility Death Spiral'. Unless electricity suppliers wise up they're on a hiding to nowhere.
New Zealand is in a somewhat unique situation in having a huge percentage of our generating capacity coming from hydro. This presents an opportunity in that hydro lakes are essentially huge batteries able to store that potential energy until demand occurs thereby buffering the variability of solar and wind generation. Instead those hydro facilities are reputedly used to block smaller solar and wind based generating companies by suppressing demand during peak solar or wind opportunities with hydro generation.
For an international perspective of what's happening and what to expect you won't find much better info than this guy: