Newsletter No.19 November 2025

Committee News November

A well attended Speakers Evening

Hi Everyone,

Once again it’s been a busy month for LETS. We are going to support Lyttelton Primary School with their solar system and we are looking forward to a new partnership with Project Lyttelton where we develop a smaller scale Lyttelton Recreation Centre type project on the roof of the Portal. More details about that will follow after we have a chat to the Project Lyttelton Board next week.

With our official links to Rewiring Aoteara we have also signed up to their “Up the kilowahs!” effort. This is a campaign aimed at all the Electricity Distribution Businesses in New Zealand. There are two main requests, one to get data on all the solar installations in the area they manage. The idea here is to get a solar map of the entire country so that we can see the areas of high and not so high uptake of solar. The second part of the campaign relates to the amount of energy that can be sent back to the network from your solar system. Currently most EDB’s only allow 5kW per 5kW phase. The campaign is asking EDB’s to increase the limit to 10kW per 10kW phase voluntarily. This will help solar system owners whose systems are between 5kW & 10kW and enable them to send more power back into the local grid. LETS has contacted our local EDB, Orion but have not had a response at the time of the newsletter publication.

Our bi-monthly speakers event was really well attended. There were many new faces in the room. I have written a brief summary of this event below.

Here is a link to the minutes from our last meeting on October 27th

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R1BVorF31_i8eOL2N3JyA15XUNqzGySw/view?usp=sharing

Due to the early publishing of the newsletter, the agenda for our November 24th meeting is not set. This meeting will be an online meeting. If you would like to join in please email communityenergylytt@gmail.com for the link. We are having an online meeting because we are welcoming our community lead Matt Newman from Rewiring Aotearoa via the community forum slot.

Hope to see you at the EXPO and or the Garage Sale this weekend.

Wendy, Dana, Greg, Juliet, Tony, Marie, Margarita, Raymond and Sam.

Visit the LETS team and all the other exhibitors at the LEH EXPO on Saturday November 8th at Albion Square. LETS can give you ideas on how your family can be more resilient when the power goes off. We also have great ideas for the wider community and are still actively trying to get solar and batteries added to the Lyttelton Recreation Centre to provide a community energy hub that has power when the network is down. Pop down to get some ideas from us and have a chat to the LETS team between 9-1pm.

LETS also at the Garage Sale Nov 8th!

Thanks to Project Lyttelton, LETS have the Garage Sale also booked on Saturday November 8th. We’ll be open 10-1pm. After you have visited the EXPO come and see us. We are fundraising for our general expenses. Thank you.

This is another very interesting idea from the conference that Tony, Wendy and Margarita participated in - Electrification Loans for Ratepayers otherwise known as the Ratepayers Assistance Scheme - RAS. Buying rooftop solar, hot water systems, EV’s and other new electrical appliances to replace fossil fueled equivalents are expensive. Rewiring Aotearoa’s research has shown affordability is a problem for many people They would like everyone to have access to cheap finance to achieve their electrification goals. They envisage these loans would be available to home owners and the owners of investment properties.

The Rewiring team have come up with a very interesting idea. Some councils have something called a Ratepayers Assistance Scheme. Rewiring are suggesting that this scheme be enhanced to allow New Zealander’s to borrow from their councils for electric upgrades. While banks offer short term criteria specific loans for these green upgrades, this proposed scheme would enable many more people to borrow for these upgrades. Interest rates would be lower as they are tied to the Local Government Funding Agency. Loans would be linked to your property. That would mean when your property sells and the loan was not fully paid off the balance would be settled with your house sale. It’s hoped that with the right incentives, landlords may install solar at rental properties also giving tenants access to more affordable power.

To make this a reality there are a few legislative amendments that would be required and a willingness for Councils to become involved. On the face of it this sounds a great idea to speed up electrification for households who are interested.

For more information visit the Rewiring Aotearoa Fact Sheet

Possibilities for Community Solar Locally

Ian’s idea for a Community Owned Solar plant in Diamond Harbour

Member Ian Flatley gave a really interesting presentation on possibilities for a community solar project on the Banks Peninsula. He highlighted the opportunities for three sites - Diamond Harbour, Little River and Ferrymead.

What are the attributes that make a good solar production site? In Ian’s opinion the land should be gentle sloping to assist with drainage, and shading plus north facing for optimum efficiency, and close to a sub station so that power can be exported to the grid easily.

He shared some really interesting resources.

How can you get an idea of how much solar power a site produces? NIWA has a great tool called a Solarview https://solarview.niwa.co.nz/

How much renewable energy is being produced in New Zealand at any given time? https://www.transpower.co.nz/

In the USA and Australia, lots of solar production means too much electricity in the day time. The duck curve highlights this.

He then went on to explain electricity supply in places where there is lots of solar production. In California and Australia solar is very popular and during the day when the most solar is produced there is excess supply. The “Duck Curve” is the analogy used to explain this. If there is too much power going into the system and not enough demand the electricity system can destabilise. The danger area is highlighted in light grey on the duck.You don’t want this to happen. To avoid this in the USA and Australia batteries are now being incentivised and installed at large scale to soak up the excess energy and put it back into the grid later in the day. The soaking up of the excess energy helps flatten the “duck curve” and keeps the network stable.(see the table below)

New Zealand currently doesn’t have a “duck curve” because we don’t have much solar production as a percentage of total electricity production. He equated our electricity demand to be more like the shape of a camel but spoke about the opportunities in Canterbury for excess solar production to support the large irrigation systems that operate during the day. Even if solar production really increases in New Zealand we need never have a “duck curve” because hopefully we have learnt the lessons of the pioneers and will incentivise battery storage sooner rather than later.

With batteries and incentives from 2023 to 2024 the duck curvre has begun to flaten.

Ian urged us to build up some rivalry with our cousins across the ditch and get going with solar and do it better with the knowledge we have gained from their experiences.

Ian is really positive we can get community led solar projects happening here. He gave examples of many community solar projects in Germany and Denmark. I have included a few links in our “Interesting Articles for the Month”.

He then spoke about how groups like LETS are the way forward for these initiatives to happen. Communities talking about the possibilities, getting the right people on side and then acting to make them a reality and sharing the proceeds with their fellow citizens.

Interesting Articles for the Month.

Interesting Articles shared in November

Inspiring Community Energy Projects in Germany and Denmark

Overview of Germany’s citizen-led solar initiatives, including shared ownership models and local impact. **https://www.surgepv.com/blog/community-solar-projects-germany**

Research-backed policy recommendations to support Germany’s 2,500+ energy communities **https://www.ioew.de/en/press/press-releases/community-energy-why-and-how-policy-should-promote-it**

A policy proposal outlining how local energy communities can support grid resilience and decarbonization **https://termonet.dk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/20250925-Energy-communities-can-speed-up-Denmarks-green-transition-EN.pdf**

Case study of Samsø, the world’s first 100% renewable energy island with full community ownership. **https://unfccc.int/climate-action/un-global-climate-action-awards/climate-leaders/samso**

Dates for your Diary

Events coming up:

Nov 8th - Garage Sale Fundraiser 10.00 -1.00pm

Nov 8th - Lyttelton Emergency Hub Expo Albion Square 10-1pm

Nov 24th - LETS Committee meeting 7pm - Online

Membership

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. Donations are also gratefully accepted and are tax deductible. 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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