24 July 2025
LETS Newsletter No 15
Newsletter No.15 July 2025
LET’S - 2025 AGM
If you missed our AGM, the committee was very pleased with a turnout of twenty three people on a cold mid July evening. Thank you to everyone who attended and a big thank you to Guest Speaker Roger Sutton.
To keep everyone up to date with the outcomes here are all the reports that were presented plus a copy of the draft AGM Minutes.
Co-Chair Annual Report
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13nx35pEwOUEkRW7Y7_BSBQd-h-sll-83/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T5HUdbAKmy5IXUdyiG_mmcQaExMTcB37/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qEkwNI6WJxZkbH9-RoWT9m6B0gX_9O0T/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16VDpOkiAljOUwt6gY1kIQoNx1X-tXMBE/view?usp=sharing
Our newly elected committee will meet for the first time on July 28th. This will be a brief procedural meeting followed by a chance for us all to get to know each other.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10M7QTV3nRkL-KOCukTtF-jeCXY6zf1_J/view?usp=sharing
We are also pleased to let you know that our next Speaker Julie Villard will focus on home energy efficiency. This is something many members have requested further information about. To book your spot please register at: https://events.humanitix.com/lets-speakers-series-julie-villard
Hope to see you at an event soon.
Wendy, Dana, Greg, Juliet, Tony, Marie, Margarita, Raymond and Sam.
Are you in the Lyttelton Heritage Precinct?
Uncertainty about Eco Enhancements.
On April 16th 2025 the Christchurch City Council reduced the size of the Lyttelton Heritage Precinct by 78 sites (see hatched zones). All the other homes, estimated at 793 remain within the area. Some of you may have no idea your home sits in this specially designated area.
Why is LETS telling you this. It’s been brought to our attention that there appears to be a strange planning rule within the Heritage Zone that says consents are required for eco additions to your home. This includes solar panels, water tanks and double glazed windows!
The City Council had been made aware of this anomaly and were in the process of requesting a plan change to rectify/clarify this. With all the upheaval in central government re planning rules I’m afraid we are not sure what is happening.
If you are a Heritage home owner seeking these changes to your property you might want to ask Christchurch City Council planners for clarification and/or petition the City Council to accept the recommended changes that exclude eco improvements from needing a resource consent. It should be noted that no other Lyttelton home owners and the majority of Christchurch City residents do not require consents for these eco friendly improvements.
Help Shape the Future of the Mānawa Kāwhiu Lyttelton Recreation Centre
LETS is sharing this survey with members. With our aim to enhance the Recreation Centre with solar power and batteries for the Lyttelton Community Emergency Hub, and all the activities within the centre including the City Council offices, this might be a survey that will be of interest to you.
*Lyttelton Recreation Centre Trust and Christchurch City Council are exploring how the Mānawa Kāwhiu Lyttelton Recreation Centre can better meet the needs of Lyttelton and surrounding communities.*
*We want to hear your thoughts on:*
*• What's working well, and what could be improved in the existing services.*
*• The activities, programmes, and services you’d like to see.*
*• Improvements or accessibility upgrades that would encourage more use.*
*Whether you are a current user or not, your feedback is important.*
*The survey only takes a few minutes to complete and can be completed by clicking on this link below.*
***https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LytteltonRec***
*The survey is open until Thursday 31 July, we would really appreciate your support in completing it and forwarding onto anyone you think would be interested.*
What do we do to decarbonise NZ?
Is it all about rooftop solar?
Roger Sutton was a very entertaining Speaker for our 2nd AGM. His presentation was a series of broad reflections about the energy world. He’s been working in the sector for years both in government, not for profit and private business.
He agreed that EV’s are amazing. So cheap and efficient to run. He owns a Leaf and a Tesla. He estimates the LEAF has cost him $500 and the Tesla $1000 over 8 years. He’s calculated that running costs for the LEAF are less then one cent a kilometer and the Tesla around three cents.
While he is a big fan of EV’s in his opinion he doesn’t think EV’s are going to make a huge difference to NZ’s carbon reductions. He believes the number of cars NZ can import from Japan is dropping and with the current attitudes of petrol combustion car dealers who make all their money from the servicing of petrol vehicles there will be little appetite for change.
What about the 10,000 electric chargers that the government wants to have installed? He lamented about the bad decision making practices of government. “Numbers are pulled from thin air with little proper analysis” he said. With most people only charging while on holidays how many more chargers does NZ realistically need? With the work DETA Consulting has done they think NZ probably only needs another 100 or so to bring the total up to 500 to meet peak demand in 2030. At that time they estimate the EV fleet will only be 10% of the total car fleet.
As most of us are aware, flying is the worst thing we as individuals can do for our carbon emissions. We might hear of bio-fuel substitution but Roger tried to put that idea to bed. “To fly from Christchurch to Auckland requires 17 X the land area of Lake Tekapo in crop alone!” he said. Bio-fuel will not be a realistic fuel alternative for the future.
He poured scorn on many of the ideas coming out of government to improve the energy situation. He’d rather see the money that was championed for Lake Onslow used to enable all institutions to get rid of coal boilers. He did however note that it would be a good idea not to dismantle the existing coal boilers for the times when dry years were putting extreme pressure on electricity resources. He’s been trying to seed this idea with politicans from across the political spectrum.
Roger is a fan of things that really improve energy efficiency. LED light bulbs were one of his favourites as well as thermal solar hot water systems, heat pumps and heat pump hot water systems.
Personally he wasn’t a huge fan of home solar systems believing that they aren’t the most efficient form for producing electricity. His preference was for solar farms where the panels are placed at the optimum angles to get the most sunlight. He did concede however that 10% of the output would be lost in transmission.
In Roger’s opinion, he thinks New Zealand is best placed to decarbonise by developing energy resources going into more energy efficient solar farms, wind and geothermal fields.
More interesting snippets from his talk:
- The type of tyre you have on your car has an impact on energy efficiency
- Lights won’t go out in NZ based on the number of EV’S. There are way more spa pools.
- Hot water is very energy intensive
- Modern household appliances are the equivalent of replacing 8 household servants
- There are only 80 days a year when the current network struggles.
- Solar thermal is 80% efficient. The Methven Hot Pools are heated this way.
Next Speaker - Julie Villard
Interesting Articles for the Month.
Interesting Articles shared in July include:
State Power, Corporate Power - or “Little Powers”? A century of energy Explotation in Aotearoa New Zealoand
How Ev’s and Electric Water Heaters are Turning Cities into Big Batteries
Can Gas from food scraps fill an energy void?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/top/567064/can-gas-from-food-scraps-fill-an-energy-void
Transpower Security of Supply Report
https://www.transpower.co.nz/system-operator/planning-future/security-supply-assessment
Submission Opportunities
The Electricity Authority has so many submission opportunities at the moment. LETS will just highlight the ones that we think are most relevant to our members.
Battery energy storage systems roadmap.Submissions due by 31 July 2025
The EA have developed a regulatory roadmap that sets out the BESS-related work we are doing over the next two years.We welcome your feedback on this roadmap, particularly if you can identify potential gaps or work we should reprioritise.
Enabling consumer mobility by improving access to electricity product data
Submissions due by 31 July 2025
The ideas being suggested are:
- make it mandatory for power companies to share accurate, standardised plan and tariff information with third parties
- cover all plan types, not just standard ones
- enable secure, on-demand digital requests that third-party applications and services can use
- lay the groundwork for real-time switching, clearer bills and fairer pricing.
Ministry of Business and Innovation and Employment
Consenting improvements for renewable electricity generation and electricity networks
This consultation is linked to the reforms on the RMA. It relates directly to package 1: Infrastructure and Development and includes proposed amendments to
- the national policy statement for renewable electricity generation (NPS-REG),
- the national policy statement on electricity transmission (NPS-ET) – which is proposed to expand in scope to include electricity distribution networks, and
- national environmental standards for electricity transmission activities (NES-ETA) (which includes new proposals for EV charging standards and an expanded scope to include electricity distribution).
Submissions close on 27 July 2025 at 11.59pm
Dates for your Diary
Events coming up:
July 28th -LETS Committee meeting
Aug 20th - Speakers Series - Julie Villard - Cold Homes are not a curse
Aug 25th - LETS Committee meeting
Sept -Event TBA
Membership Renewal
FRIENDLY REMINDER TO RENEW YOUR 2025/2026 MEMBERSHIP. Please let us know shortly if you wish to renew/cancel your membership. The new Incorporated Society rules are not as relaxed as previous in relation to membership. Drop us a note to communityenergylytt@gmail.com to let us know what your membership status is.
If you would like to join LETS and haven’t yet, here is a link to our membership application https://www.lets.org.nz/files/Membership%20Application.pdf
It’s very affordable, only $5 and you’ll be helping to shape the future of Community Energy in Aoteraoa. Thank you.
All members are welcome to sign up to our LETS Whats App Group. In this group we share networking opportunities and informative articles/podcasts. If you are interested please text Wendy 021 0476144.
Facebook Lyttelton Energy Transition Society -LETS
For links to our web page and email please click on the links at the bottom of the newsletter.
Do you have any news or events energy related that you’d like included in this monthly broadcast? Please email Wendy communityenergylytt@gmail.com
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