Originally posted by GUB Currently in NZ for me the electric vehicle dogma is just more fake news. While we have only 80% renewable power and still have coal fired stations in the grid then any addition to grid load is coal fired. The fashionable adoption of Electric Vehicle technology is clearly and simply an addition load on the grid. So in New Zealand EVs are coal fired. I would have had some sympathy if rather than subsidise purchasers of EVs the Gov had contributed to a special fund to augment the current renewable power.
Evening GUB
My company is zero carbon registered with
Toitu and each year we are trying to cut our emissions and make some progress in producing less carbon. The past 12 months have been helped hugely by the covid pandemic - less travel, more video conferencing etc - so less carbon produced.
As part of our ongoing commitment to carbon reduction we have been moving our fleet to PHEVs - we currently have 3 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEVs and 1 Mazda CX5. The PHEV's give us 30km electric motor range per charge, and charge overnight for $2 electricity, yes that is 30km for $2 i.e. roughly 1/3 the cost of the same range using petrol, no emissions, and really nice quiet running. The weeks I am only running around town I just don't use petrol. When I am heading to Christchurch Airport, as I did yesterday with a full electric charge and a full tank - I used some petrol but achieved really good overall fuel economy - 15.5 km/l.
Because the PHEV's charge overnight there is no additional grid load that fires up coal or gas fired plants i.e. the charging is from renewables and occurs where there is low base load.
Further, to make sure that I am not using coal or gas fired energy resources, I have recently transferred both my home and business electricity supply from Contact (who have a thumping great gas fired station just up the road from you in Taranaki) to
Ecotricity who only purchase and on-sell renewable power. This is what is called a 'market signal' to suppliers who aren't using 100% renewables.
As NZ's EV fleet - PHEVs and BEV's ramps up, so will our investment in renewable energy sources - there is plenty already happening, and much more to come.
I am really happy with how we are tracking as a business with regard to this, and looking forward to making more progress this year.
Returning the topic to photography, with Ecotricity supplying my power, I will be able to happily charge my new K-3 III batteries (when the K3-III arrives) with fully renewable power - which just seems like a win-win to me.