Home electrification is like discovering a local café where the food is better and costs much less than where you’ve been going for years. You can’t wait to get out and tell your friends so they can enjoy it too.

This is where the local arm of Rewiring Aotearoa come in. Groups like Electrify Kāpiti, Wānaka, and Wairarapa.

Many of your friends and neighbours may have heard about solar, want to know more about EVs or have considered a heat pump. But like trying a new café over the one you’re familiar with, who knows if that will work out? What are these technologies like to live with? How much should they cost (they are more affordable than people often think) and how much could you expect to save? Who’s had a good experience?

That’s where people who have first-hand experience come in. Just regular people that already have these technologies and have gone through the buying and installation process and now operate them on a day to day basis. Perhaps people that have managed to make the switch from gas for hot water and cooking or gone for the convenience of a heat pump for automated heating and cooling of their home over running a log burner. Perhaps an EV is really working out for them.

They know how their bills have come down, how seamlessly their system works and how well their supplier and installer did. These groups also typically have a ballpark idea of pricing; spoiler: things are getting more affordable, fast. It’s like being able to recommend that café. You don’t have to be a chef to know a great tasting, good value meal when you see one, you just need to experience it, and who better to take advice from than your friends and neighbours who have been there?

While it’s essential to do the hard policy mahi, write expert economic reports and co-ordinate things at a national level as Rewiring Aotearoa does, it’s the community groups that roll out electrification in our homes, one kitchen table conversation at a time. This just means regular people, our friends and neighbours, having regular conversations about their experience with electrification, answering all those questions people have.

Electrify Kāpiti is doing this literally at the kitchen table. It simply posts on community social media pages and people put their hand up for a visit to talk through their options. Not with a salesperson, but with a neighbour who’s been there and done it. This can make all the difference in deciding to go ahead with solar, batteries, getting off gas or buying that first EV; or just knowing what to look for when it comes time to replace things.

Add to this, conversations at local markets, doing stuff for the local paper, talking to Councils or getting people together for talks or a community expo. A group of EV owners could arrange to attend a local market or school fair.

There’s lots to do and getting things going in your community is easier than you might think.

• To connect with Electrify Kāpiti, get in touch. And to see if there's a community group in your area or find out more about setting up your own, visit the communities page.

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