When we moved into our house 18 years ago we were burning fossil fuels for water heating, space heating, transport and cooking. Over the years we've made economic, practical and heath decisions to buy electric when replacing our machines.

☀ 15 yrs ago removed the open fireplace

☀ 11 yrs ago renovated the kitchen replacing the gas stove with an induction cooktop and installed solar panels

☀ 6 yrs ago heat pump installed

☀ 5 yrs ago bought our first electric bike for transport

☀ 3 yrs ago the old gas water cylinder broke so we replaced it with an electric water heater (we then disconnected from gas altogether)

☀ 2 yrs ago the old petrol lawn mower was replaced with an electric one.

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The journey to a 100% Electric Home is almost there!  When my partner’s 2003 Subaru Legacy goes shortly he's looking at just using a carshare scheme.

We did it almost by accident so perhaps if we'd looked harder at the benefits we would have transitioned much quicker, especially getting off gas for cooking and water heating.

How can that energy transition happen faster and provide community benefits far beyond a single Grey Lynn house? What has powered me up is hearing the compelling presentations by Rewiring Aotearoa's Mike Casey and Dr David Hall. They've done the numbers - an aggressive electrification campaign with a shift to solar (with batteries to store electricity for when needed) would save New Zealand households almost $11bn a year by 2040, with lower emissions, massive efficiency gains, and greater well-being for households and whānau.