Renters make up around one third of households in New Zealand. Some landlords may be open to installing solar panels and electric appliances, especially as it is likely to enhance the property value and attractiveness as a rental. You could calculate a value proposition and negotiate a slight rental increase in exchange for a larger power bill reduction, something often called a comfort levy. This means both the landlord and the tenants benefit - the landlord gets more rent and a more valuable property, the tenant gets a cheaper power bill, and the savings come from the sun.

Renters (especially if there is access to offstreet parking so they can charge at home) can get all the benefits of an electric vehicle and there are an increasing number of affordable second-hand options that can cope with most urban driving requirements, and portable induction stoves are available for those who don’t want to cook with gas, especially given the health impacts of indoor gas appliances. 

Demand flexibility is a crucial component of our energy system and all customers - whether large or small users - should be rewarded for reducing demand when required, or exporting at peak times. The recent Government Policy Statement on Electricity seems to back that view.

It’s total energy consumption, not electricity consumption, that is key to a sustainable future. We need to use less energy to do the same things, i.e. better efficiency. Electrification is the energy efficiency we’ve always been looking for - at both a small and large scale. 

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In our homes, switching to electric vehicles, hot water heating, space heating and cooking can reduce total household energy use by around 70% because heat pumps, induction stoves and EVs are on average 3-4 times more efficient at using energy than conventional fossil fuel machines. These homes will use more electricity but much less energy overall and this enhanced efficiency is where a lot of the savings come from.

Any reduction in electricity use above and beyond the main efficiency gain from electrification, whether through more efficient electric machines (e.g. LED light bulbs) or behaviour change (e.g. riding an e-bike instead of the EV) is a bonus, but electrification should come first to lock in the big-ticket emissions reduction and efficiency benefits.

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Some homes are unhealthy and should be insulated, but in general, if you’re trying to stay warm it’s much cheaper to install a heat pump than to insulate. 

If you’re using gas and insulate your whole home you might reduce gas usage by 25%. If you replace that gas with a heat pump you reduce your energy use by 70% overnight without any insulation.

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Electric machines are - in general - significantly more efficient than their fossil fuel counterparts. This is important to understand as it drives many of the cost savings available through electrification. For example, heat pumps deliver three times lower energy bills than gas heating, and ten times lower emissions.

Insulation will improve the efficiency of heating and cooling your home and may be a good idea if you live in colder areas or a particularly draughty home. However, it doesn’t need to be done before electrification and it isn’t essential to experience the economic, health and environmental benefits of switching from traditional gas and electric resistance heaters to efficient electric heat pumps. 

To improve the thermal performance of your home, start by looking at the low hanging fruit such as sealing up air leaks, installing better interior window coverings, covering up windows and closing doors at night.

Buildings use around 40% of the world’s energy, and are responsible for around 17% of the world’s emissions, so they are very important. 

Building standards for extremely efficient homes that need no net energy input, such as ''passivhaus,'' are a good idea. Some will argue that with a sufficiently good building you do not need heat pump heating, and that may be true, but we need to solve this problem for the houses we already have and inspire homeowners to retrofit, as they make up a much larger proportion of our housing stock. 

In the U.S, for example, only 1% of housing stock is built new each year. And only about 2% of houses are built with an architect; the majority are built from common plans. Reducing energy use is something we need to focus on, but electrification is the efficiency we have always been looking for as it can reduce total energy use by 70%. 

New gas connections make no sense for economic, environmental and health reasons.