Written By:
- Date published:
10:38 am, July 9th, 2026 - 25 comments
Categories: climate change, election 2026, energy, labour -
Tags: solar power
This is impressive from Labour. Not only have they used a broad systems thinking approach looking at intersecting issues, but at their press conference they sounded like they’re already in government.
Labour have obviously done a lot of hard work on this over time, and it shows in the intelligence of this policy suite that covers cost of living, job creation, community resilience, industry support, emergency power generation infrastructure, and climate mitigation and adaptation. So good.
I’m very pleased to see them front footing renters and the importance of the policy for low and middle income earners. This is exactly the positioning we need.
Bonus, they make National’s solar policy look kind of pathetic. But the Greens made an important point here, that National could act now on solar, before the election. We are in a crisis, they should get on with it.
Congratulations to the Green Party. This is one of the best examples of how they effect change even without being in government. All those years of leading on policy development around solar has shifted the green Overton Window, making it a no brainer for Labour to now combine solar and the cost of living crisis. This is how change happens and is a great example of how Labour and the Greens complement each other and advance the leftist way.
NZ Labour Party SolarSaver policy press release
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Labour’s SolarSaver removes the barrier that locks most families out of solar power with Government-backed finance, kickstart subsidies, plug-in options for renters and a community battery fund for neighbourhoods.
Key facts
Power bills are up 20 percent in just two years under Christopher Luxon. Families squeezed hardest by rising bills are locked out of the easiest solution.
Sunshine is the cheapest power there is – the only costly part is the gear. A typical solar and battery system costs around $20,000, which is out of reach for most families.
People with money could always get solar. But the only affordable finance available requires a mortgage and enough equity. SolarSaver changes that by taking care of the upfront cost.
Whatever your situation, SolarSaver has an option for you:
Two long-term, low-interest loan options with nothing to pay upfront:
Repayments are set below your power bill savings, so you are better off every month from the start.
A kickstart subsidy of up to $3,000 is available for low- and middle-income households. That is enough to cover a plug-in solar system in full, or to reduce the cost of a rooftop install.
Labour has set aside $77 million for household subsidies over four years.
Labour will fix the regulations so renters can use plug-in solar panels that connect to a normal power point. Everything that converts sunlight into usable electricity is already built in – just plug in and start saving.
A two-panel kit costs around $1,500, saves $300-$400 a year on your power bill, and pays for itself in four to five years. Eligible people who rent can also access the kickstart subsidy to cover the cost.
A $30 million community battery fund means neighbourhoods can share the benefits of local solar power whether they have panels or not. Community batteries store power and feed it back when people need it most, at peak times, or when the network goes down.
EECA will provide a free, independent, one-stop shop to help you work out what suits your home, get quotes from accredited installers, match you with the best finance for your situation and set out realistic whole-of-life running costs upfront – so you know exactly what to expect.
A community battery stores surplus power generated locally during the day and feeds it back to a neighbourhood or group of units in the evening, during a storm, or a power cut. It works like a home battery, but shared across many households at once. Everyone nearby shares the savings, whether they have panels or not, owners and renters alike.
Labour will set up a $30 million fund for community batteries. Councils, iwi, community trusts, charities, and lines companies can all apply, with the Government covering half of each project (up to $200,000 per project). Lines companies can apply to build, own, and operate community batteries in the most energy-vulnerable neighbourhoods, or in areas where a battery can defer a costly network upgrade.
Community batteries are already working in parts of New Zealand:
Local solar and battery sharing is expected to cover 80-90 percent of the energy bills of three family-services organisations, who pass the benefit to the families they support.
Solar and batteries on marae have cut local power bills by around 20 percent, with energy traded within the community at below-market prices.
Pole-mounted batteries are topping up supply at peak times, avoiding expensive network upgrades that would otherwise land on everyone’s power bill.
SolarSaver isn’t just about cheaper power. Every rooftop system and community battery means local jobs for electricians, installers, inspectors and solar technicians, in the regions as much as the cities.
Labour will fund the Tertiary Education Commission to work with industry to grow the solar workforce as installation scales up, including apprenticeships, on-the-job training, re-skilling and micro-credentials leading to secure, well-paid careers. $4 million is set aside for workforce development.
Combined with Labour’s expanded Apprenticeship Boost, this builds the workforce New Zealand needs to deliver clean, cheap power to every community – and keeps the money households save circulating in their local economy.
SolarSaver draws on approaches already working in other countries:
The Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) scheme provides clean energy finance repaid through the property, not a personal loan. PACE has provided billions of dollars of upgrades over more than a decade.
Around 1.5 million plug-in solar systems are registered, with renters leading the way and a spotless safety record for compliant systems.
Sydney network Ausgrid’s shared neighbourhood batteries are forecast to save eligible customers about AUD $200 a year, panels or not.
SolarSaver costs $160 million over four years, funded by repurposing the Government’s Gas Security of Supply fund – money that has been sitting almost entirely unspent while power bills go up. Labour will put it to work cutting bills instead.
The cost includes:
A Labour government will have EECA support, the subsidy scheme, and the lines company and Ratepayer Assistance Scheme loans up and running within 12 months of taking office.
Well done, looks good. Now we wait for the assessment by a range of economists, which will collectively inform public opinion. Then the next poll, for impact.
It appears like a giant leap but in reality there's a lot to be desired.
Despite the nod to renters, they are effectively limited to two small panels with many post purchase issues (if you can even afford it) to be resolved, among others;
To really take the climate, energy and cost of living crisis seriously rooftop installation should be compulsory for all residential tenancies in the same way Healthy Homes Standards (heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture ingress and drainage, and draught stopping) was made compulsory.
Even under Labour's policy there's a risk a full 1/3 of New Zealand houses will not have meaningful access to effective solar energy. And once again renters are left with reduced benefits from policy and technology advances.
Batteries are coming along fast. Witness the current ones, which weren’t available a couple of years ago.
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/category/power-and-lighting/portable-power/portable-power-stations?o=lowest_price
I’m testing a 288WH Bluetti 30 v2 at present as a UPS for my comms UPS. I’m going to flip it to replace the lead-acid UPS for my server, but it already looks like it will out-perform that by hours.
These kinds of batteries all allow for multi charge sources including plugin solar panels. I’m thinking about it. Computers typically account for about 10-15% of my power costs.
I agree that the plug-ins won't be as great as I had hoped having looked online for some info about them. I wrote about that under LPrent's post,
https://thestandard.nz/simpleton-brown-an-idiot-about-power/#comment-2066821
a comment which I probably should have made here instead.
Basically it depends on renters having access to somewhere to put the plug-in panel that gets about 4 hours a day sunlight. It wouldn't be as good as having the landlords being encouraged to put more fixed roof panels on their rental properties.
A recommended place to put a plug-in is on the outside side of a balcony. I wouldn't be able to fit one on my balcony.
Labour says plug-in panels aren't yet legal in NZ and that will require a law change. They say the connection from the panels to the indoor sockets will be legal. Will that insure it won't require an electrician to install?
There are a number of reasons why I think Labour should not propose making it mandatory “for all residential tenancies”, but it could become [part of] the next stage.
There are several capacity issues that need to be addressed before a large(r) scale implementation is even possible. Labour has addressed some (most or all?) of these in its policy and budgeted for them accordingly and they are not insignificant.
More carrot and less stick generally is a better approach and if a policy package is good enough and sold well enough to the people, voluntary uptake should be sufficient to build momentum. The beauty of Labour’s policy is that is literally gives power to people and enables them to make their own choices. Marc Daalder refers to this as follows:
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/07/09/labour-aims-to-outshine-nationals-solar-policy/ [behind temporary subscription wall]
Labour might do better leaving the heavy sticks to the neo-authoritarians, particularly in this stage of the election cycle, i.e., the early stages of the election campaign, and avoid being tainted by negative perceptions (e.g., ‘nanny state’, although it won’t stop National’s little Machiavelli from making up shit).
Also see LPrent’s comment: https://thestandard.nz/simpleton-brown-an-idiot-about-power/#comment-2066836.
An installer is not impressed. Seems to not see it as game-changer:
Does this mean that both major parties are merely virtue-signalling? Credibility will hinge on uptake, so incrementalism wins by default again?
16 panels would give me in my location about 6Mw annually. That, at 35c per kw/h, is worth $2,100 per annum. Investment back in, using your costings, 10-12 years.
Secondly, the original investment will also add to the worth of the property when resold.
This is an investment I have already made, without government assistance. it is certainly NOT virtue-signalling. I am now nearly clear after 9 years of solar panel ownership.
Cool, it worked for you. Can we assume how general that effect will be though? I suspect variance of outcome scales with number of providers as well as particular customer requirements. Could complexify into guesswork.
Looks like gold-plated system to me. I’d have no need for anything at that scale. At least not with a decent battery system (which he didn’t stress WTF!). His examples were kind of weird.
BTW I was putting solar into a house, I’d probably shift most appliances to DC and put the inverter only on the grid connection (if I had one). Why would you bother connecting to the grid to export power? The lines and power companies literally don’t pay enough to pay for the required equipment.
AC is good for transmission, but inefficient for powering electrics or electronics. All computers convert AC to run on DC internally. So do TV’s and almost all electronics. Heating systems don’t care if it is AC or DC. Electric heating doesn’t care if it is AC or DC – they just push electrons through resistance to generate heat. Only electric motors (like compressors on fridges or heat pumps) run on AC internally.
Every conversion from AC to DC and vice versa has a largish nett loss. So why get solar as DC, convert it to AC to push into a house system via inverter, then receive as AC at a appliance and convert it to DC again.
The 3k isn’t the substantive part – that is just an incentive. What is the substantive part is the ability to borrow widely.
This shifts it from a up-front cost to periodic cost without having to waste time talking to a bank about an largely unsecured loan – which they really hate doing.
lines and power companies literally don’t pay enough to pay for the required equipment.
So the incentive structure is wrong. Some kind of financial wizardry seems a good idea, huh? Either socialist govt or an entrepreneur who knows how to work with govt to make a public/private scheme that doesn't turn to shit.
Every conversion from AC to DC and vice versa has a largish nett loss. So why get solar as DC, convert it to AC to push into a house system via inverter, then receive as AC at a appliance and convert it to DC again.
To trash the concept of economic efficiency? Just guessing. Problem with tech gnosis is lack of trickle-through to users. Zuck exemplified the power law relation (the twins he formed his triad with got a few hundred million in small change from their settlement, I vaguely recall). Creator holds purse-strings principle.
Contagion amongst users comes from networking so economics must follow. Infrastructure is in the grey zone between designer and user where engineers in high tech operating contexts work their magic to make things go according to plan. Synergy of all stake-holders then works the social alchemy.
People that appear clued up to me say the problem of DC arcing makes using mains level DC more trouble than its worth.
I'm not talking about mains level DC for internal to a house. Arcing is definitely a problem if you're running kilometres of line.
But house run lengths are measured in a small number of tens of metres, and work against a centralised board. It doesn't need to be more than 24V for anything – ie the same as on most boats – not anything like 120/240V.
The only thing I can think of that would use higher DC voltages in a household is gear that charges high capacity batteries – like a e-bike or e-car or had a massive aircond or were doing something like heavy duty water pump.
Besides it isn't hard in a household to put in arc fault detection devices (AFDD), head sensors, DC rated equipment, and to bloody correctly terminate. Most DC equipment I have used over the last couple of decades has arcing and temperature detection built in.
The only time I have seen DC arcing outside of welding was when I made a stupid mistake coding a new Li-on charge controller and effectively bypassed the controller while charging a non-controlled battery.
It also isn't hard to control switch off equipment before pulling plugs and cables – which is when most of severe arcing happens. Lock in those with with electromagnets if there is a current running so that they can't be pulled without a lot of force.
They don't appear to be particularly clued up to me. They sound like they have gained their knowledge from a History Channel doco about Telsa vs Edison in the latter part of the 19th century.
Ask them why they are talking about mains level DC for the internals of a household.
Then ask them why there aren't marine vessels or large trucks burning and arcing everywhere. Typically few of them (apart from the very largest) use AC for anything in their core uses. That is because they don't a lot of continuous running electric motors.
Mostly they will only use AC when they are plugged into a AC grid, or they are running AC generators for something like a widespread air-cond system with a lot of wiring run lengths to AC compressor motors.
If the cost comes down from $22k to $19k that sounds pretty good to me. Remember payback these days is 6-7 years then you have free electricity.
I LOVE the community battery part of the policy. This is one of the ways to get around "dry years" where masses of power is saved around the country in these community batteries, to be used at peak times.
Importing LNG is simply not needed.
no. It means that Labour's policy is designed as a stepping stone. $3,000 is a subsidy to help people install their own. They don't have to do a full install, they can upgrade over time if they can't afford the costs that installer is saying.
Isn't the proposal a $3,000 grant (for low and middle income) plus a loan for the rest? Don't know why the solar panel installer seems to think there is only $3,000 available under the Labour proposal.
Probably hadn't thought it through – though that would equally apply to the MR team if they didn't seek to clarify it…
"Labour has done alot of work on this "
Makes one wonder if that's why national got out in front with a half pie version.
Community batteries all the way, hard no to subsidized personal batteries
I agree, Labour’s policy is comprehensive and integrates with other important issues such as job creation & training, e.g., by combining it with Labour's expanded Apprenticeship Boost policy. Labour also sends another clear signal that it wants NZ to improve its energy security & resilience and move away from fossil fuels by funding its SolarSaver policy through repurposing the Government's Gas Security of Supply Fund.
BTW, has nobody noticed the high similarity between SolarSaver and KiwiSaver? I don’t think this is coincidence.
Whilst SolarSaver is framed mostly as a cost-of-living and hip-pocket policy, it also plays a part in combatting climate change.
On a meta level, Labour is exercising strong politics without hype & fanfare with policies that amount to a wrap-around support blanket for individuals & individual households at community level. Not only is this clever politics but also helps to build stronger and more resilient communities.
It really is pretty damn smart. It also fits straight into the irritation and outright annoyance that many voters have with our increasingly flaky and expensive electrify systems over the past decade.
Good to read Incognito. A lot of the political news leaves me feeling weak and worried. Something good, definite, practical from Labour is welcome.
If they can get back to some of the ideas from the past that mattered big time it would be great. Here are the Neckbellies with some of the original folk type music of the old days all about work and life and a bit of fun for a change. 'Same Old Man Working at the Mill' – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spi0yPY6hRo
Or d'Artgnan 'We're going to be drinking' – rollicking a bit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwU_psQGEJ8
For my main Auckland flat I am more inclined to replace their water heater with the Rheem heat inverter which does their hot water and also provides another heat pump.
The reason for this is I don't trust solar panels to last, and I want a durable asset from a company that has been around for a very long time here. It will cost about $8,000 installed and that will go into lowering the cost of the largest appliance at about 25% of their power cost.
I have already replaced their old gas stove with a new ceramic top one.
That's a choice lots of landlords will need to make.
The best advice I have found for checking the reliability of solar panels is https://www.choice.com.au/home-improvement/energy-saving/solar. Choice is the Australian version of our Consumer.
I've read recently that there are some problems with some heat pump hot water systems but can't find where right now.
I love Labor's policy but believe loans should only be given where there is evidence of quality. With Australia so far ahead of us with solar this should be easy to do.
Great work weka, thank you.
There is a lot to like about this. What I would really like to see is the power companies renationalised and have their purpose pivot from making a return for shareholders to providing affordable power to citizens and businesses.
Home batteries apparently are very successful in Australia. NZ seems sluggish in comparison but the election may have put a rocket up some arses, so no need to call Rocket Lab.
https://theconversation.com/after-home-batteries-could-the-humble-water-heater-be-the-next-big-step-forward-284425
In the process of making decisions about solar and right now using the 300 litre HWC, with wood burner/wetback during low production months, as the sole energy store(12-16kwh @60C daily), makes more financial sense than batteries.