Mike and Rebecca Casey installed an 100kW solar system on their 9ha cherry business Forest Lodge Orchard in Mt Pisa.
Wholesale electricity spot price had spiked recently due to historically low levels in southern hydro lakes.
"The only way we can begin to hedge our businesses against higher spot prices is by beginning to generate our own electricity," Mr Casey said at Beef + Lamb event AgriInnovation Summit in Alexandra recently.
Mr Casey wanted the government to change a tariff system so farmers could install solar power systems and participate in the energy market.
"This government is all about free markets but it is not a free market at the moment, only the big boys are allowed to play," he said.
The average retail price for power from the grid now costs about 34c per kilowatt-hour. If the cost of a solar system of his scale, spread across 25 years, cost about 3.6c/kWh.
To finance the solar system on a 5.5% loan over 15 years, increases the cost to nearly 7c/kWh.
Financing his 300kWh of batteries, increases the system cost by another 24c/kWh.
The total cost of a system to generate solar and store the energy in a battery was nearly 31c/kWh, which was cheaper than buying it from the national grid, he said.
He was not encouraging anyone to disconnect from the grid.
"I want us to generate as much energy as we can so we can bring our average cost per kilowatt hour down," he said.
Raised in Wellington, Mr Casey moved to Sydney after university and created website GradConnection, connecting university students to their first job, a company he sold to Seek in 2019.
Returning to New Zealand, he launched his 9300 cherry tree orchard.
His orchard uses only electric machines including a car, an electric tractor, frost fighting fans and foliage sprayer.
The electric machinery cost him about $400,000 more than buying a fossil fuel-powered equivalent when he began buying it in 2020.
However, using machinery powered by electricity rather than fossil fuel saved him about $33,000 in energy costs a year, he said.
Electric machinery was cheaper to buy now so the payback period would be shorter.
"We are at a tipping point where it is now cheaper to finance a new electric machine than it is to burn the fossil fuels in an old machine."
Now he could buy power when it was cheap and store it and then sell when it was expensive.
"The next time I talk to you, hopefully I’ll be able to tell you that I’ve turned our energy bill into a $10,000 revenue stream for our farm."
Farmers wanting to install a solar system should pay about $1000 a kilowatt for panels and about $800/kW for a battery.
Mr Casey said his 100kW solar system cost about $100,000 including installation.
The system could generate about $22,000 of electricity per year at the wholesale market rate for the past five years, making the payback period about five years.
His solar panels were guaranteed for 25 years and he expected them to last up to 35 years.
His batteries were guaranteed for 10 years and he expected them to last for at least 15 years.
He bought his solar panels from a supplier and got a builder to install them and an electrician to wire them, which was a substantially cheaper way of doing it, he said.
The cost to install solar power in New Zealand was about twice the cost as it was in Australia because the market was more competitive in Australia.
Installation of his solar system did not require a consent from any council, he said.
Mr Casey’s first solar panels were installed on the roof, which in hindsight was a mistake.
The panels were difficult to wash, which was required at least twice a year.
"It is much easier to have them on the ground and get a leafblower out when it snows," he said.
He could sell his "electric cherries" at a premium by mail order to "climate and energy nerds in Auckland and Wellington".
Nobody paid a premium for his cherries on the export market.
He launched charity Rewiring Aotearoa, aiming to electrify 10 million fossil fuel machines by 2030.
"If we do that, New Zealand could become the first electric economy by 2040."
A quarter of New Zealand’s gross emissions came from small machines using fossil fuels, which had an electric alternative available.
"This is the low hanging fruit of New Zealand’s emissions."
Minister for Energy Simeon Brown said he and Resources Minister Shane Jones announced a series of actions the government would take to bolster New Zealand’s energy security late last month.
"One of these important actions was to improve electricity market regulation."
The Electricity Authority and Commerce Commission, along with Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, had formed a joint Energy Competition Task Force, which would focus on driving more generation investment and strengthening competition in the energy sector for the long-term benefit of consumers.
"Regulators are looking at the tools they have in their toolbox to ensure we have a competitive market and a level playing field for all participants, including solar.
"I am also receiving advice on the regulatory barriers to solar installation in New Zealand which have not kept up-to-date with comparable countries, and looking at what changes are needed to ensure installing solar can be as easy and affordable as possible."
