HVAC Electronics
Modern HVAC systems are already power-electronics machines, not simple on/off electrical loads. That is why they fit naturally into the Energy Internet idea. A modern HVAC system (heat pump or air conditioner) does not run its compressor directly from the AC grid. Instead, the incoming AC power is first rectified to DC. That DC is […]
The Energy Internet
Electricity in New Zealand is not expensive because energy is scarce. It is expensive because the delivery system is organised around an outdated assumption that we have to “build to the peaks”. We still design and price electricity as if everyone might need maximum power at the same moment, all the time. That assumption drives […]
Nelson Review – limited
The Nelson Review is intended to be a blueprint for managing Australia’s electricity transition. That description is accurate, but incomplete. The report delivers what it was asked to deliver, and its conclusions are dominated by the constraints placed around it rather than by the full reality of the transition now underway. Those constraints are unusually […]
V2G Tesla
Tesla currently do not support V2G despite it being an opportunity for owners to monetise (pay off the investment) using the huge battery often sitting idle in their garages. fig.1 Asleep 20 hours, could have been arbitraging the spot market and supporting the local grid! e-mail thread with Tesla NZ customer service: Dear Tesla New Zealand Customer […]
Flexibility and EVs – Infrastructure
The Other Path: How New Zealand Can Grow by Treating Flexibility and EVs as Infrastructure The BCG Energy to Grow report usefully describes the challenges facing New Zealand’s electricity system as domestic gas declines and demand rises. It does not, however, fully explore a second path that already exists alongside the incumbent one. This path […]
Energy to Grow
Energy to Grow, for Whom? What the BCG Report Says — and What Consumers Were Never Asked The recently released Energy to Grow report by BCG has being cited as an authoritative roadmap for New Zealand’s energy future. It deserves to be read carefully. What is significant just as much as what the report says, […]
Households as Energy Infrastructure
New Zealand’s power system swings between two costly extremes. At times, we waste clean electricity because there is nowhere for it to go.At other times, we pay more for power and burn coal or gas to insure against shortages. Those swings don’t stay inside the electricity sector. They flow straight into: This is not just […]
EV’s – Strategic Infrastructure
New Zealand’s Electric Vehicle (EV) debate has drifted into the wrong frame. We talk about uptake rates, incentives, and whether people are “ready”, when the numbers tell a much simpler story: the transition is already economically inevitable, and slowing it is quietly costing the country billions. Using conservative assumptions — a light-vehicle fleet of around […]
Monetising V2G
Why V2G, incentives, and pricing reform are converging in Queenstown — and why the rest of NZ should care Queenstown is growing fast. Permanent population, visitor numbers, electrified transport, and electric heating are all rising together, and the local electricity system is feeling it. The existing high-voltage conductor feeding the region is approaching its limits. […]
CAC Replacement
Summary – Letter to Minister for Consumer Affairs The disestablishment of the Consumer Advocacy Council (CAC) has left a recognised gap in expert, evidence-based representation for households, small businesses, and prosumers in New Zealand’s electricity system. MBIE’s own briefing confirmed that no other group has the capacity or technical expertise to fill this role, and […]