Long story short, I interviewed transport and energy activist Patrick Reynolds this week about the bid to run Entrust by a new campaign group he’s part of called More for you; better for Auckland. There’s a lot more detail in this GreaterAuckland post and on ‘Better’s’ website.
They’re campaigning to win the trustee seats of Entrust off the conservative Citizens and Ratepayers’ (C&R) group that have run it for decades. There’s a postal election about to start. Last time the Entrust board was elected with less than 10% of the vote. The ‘Better’ team want to shake up Entrust to focus on making power more affordable, possibly through Auckland’s lines company Vector or others using increasingly cheap solar powers and batteries on the rooves of Auckland’s factories, warehouses and homes.
“C&R have run it for 30 years and they've not changed anything in that time, yet the world has changed substantially in those 30 years. And especially the repricing and the massive sophistication in solar and batteries, which has altered power supply and pricing all over the world.” Patrick Reynolds
We spoke about:
Better’s ideas for a solar ‘giga plant’ in South Auckland;
the long-running operation of Entrust without much public involvement;
Entrust’s use of community funds to pay for undergrounding in the leafiest suburbs of Auckland;
Entrust’s lack of adjustment to massive technology change; and,
Auckland’s 2% solar panel penetration rate, vs Australia’s 35%, even though Auckland is on the same latitude as South Australia and Victoria.
“If you fly into Māngere over the Isthmus and you look down, you see all those warehouse and factory roofs just staring up, reflecting sunlight back up at you, It's quite easy to calculate. You could have a power station by working with those owners, the scale of Huntly or Manapouri.” Patrick Reynolds
This is the second in series of interviews for The Kākā Project 2026 for 2050 (TKP 26/50). I interviewed
about transport policy earlier this week. See link below.Possible TKP 26/50 policies in the interview
Better proposes:
Accelerating the rollout of rooftop solar and batteries in Auckland by financing new panels and batteries;
Symmetrical tariffs that would mean solar generators are able to sell surplus power back into the grid at the same price as the consumer buys power from the grid;
Rolling out solar panels and batteries to community facilities such as maraes and churches to improve resiliency and spread the benefits through the community; and,
Supporting the building of a new ‘giga plant’ in South Auckland.
Your thoughts, challenges and alternatives?
Cheers
Bernard
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