17 February 2026
LETS Newsletter No 22
Newsletter No.22 February 2026
Committee News January
Hi Everyone,
We trust you have all had a lovely summer break.
Your committee are back up and running and looking forward to our programme for 2026. Just a few changes and swaps on our committee. We fare-welled Marie from the Committee and had a shuffle around with Board positions. Greg has become our Treasurer and Sam is the Co-Chair. A big thank you to Dana who has held both of these roles and remains a committee member.
Here is a link to our January Minutes.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AZgV2LbflSI1ToZjMz989dmU6e6Wgmwq/view?usp=sharing
Whilst on the “Thanks You’s” also a shout out to the Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū Banks Peninsula Community Board for granting LETS $2000 for community outreach and to upskill our team.
Our next committee meeting will be Monday February 23rd at 7pm.Please note our new meeting meeting place is 54A Oxford Street at the Project Lyttelton (The Portal) above the Garage Sale.This will become the location of Lyttelton’s first community solar project.
Also a very big thank you to the Lyttelton Information Centre and Juliet Adams who have hosted LETS committee meetings since our inception two years ago.
See you at our next event. Jenny Sahng from Rewiring Aotearoa on Wednesday February 18th 7.30pm. To reserve your place please register:
https://events.humanitix.com/lets-speaker-series-benefits-of-community-energy-in-lyttelton-harbour
Wendy, Dana, Greg, Juliet, Tony, Margarita, Raymond and Sam.
10Kw Export Limits Progressing
You might recall a story we reported on last December about EDB’s - Electricity Distributution Business’s with some voluntarily allowing customers with residential solar systems to share more power with the grid. At the time our local EDB - Orion indicated it would prefer to create a dynamic system of grid flexibility to ensure a more just outcome.
At the end of January LETS received the following email from the Electricity Authority. Their tracker now shows that Orion now is working towards increasing the export limit when possible. That’s great news. Thanks also to the advocacy work from Rewiring Aotearoa for pushing this initiative forward.
*“One of the proposals we’re considering is to require distributors to adopt a default 10kW export limit for small-scale distributed generation (such as residential solar) using the streamlined application process in the Code. Although no decisions have yet been made, we welcome distributors voluntarily moving to a 10kW export limit for residential connections where it is safe to do so and are interested in their progress.*
*We have now published a tracker that shows the progress of distributors voluntarily increasing their default export limit for residential connections to 10kW or more. It uses a traffic light system to show whether distributors have default export limits of 10kW or more, are in the process of increasing them, or aren’t currently considering changes. The tracker will be updated every month.*
*Shift to 10kW export limits: progress tracker**We are pleased to see many distributors have, or are considering increasing the default export limit. We are considering the feedback received in submissions and the extent to which the proposed amendment would help ensure efficient export limits are retained as networks expand.”*
What do The Spinoff, 350.org, Larry Blair and Rewiring’s Mike Casey and have to say about LNG?
What a month it has been for energy news. With the government announcing a plan to begin an LNG Import Terminal in Taranaki to solve our dry year energy and gas shortages. Rather than voicing our thoughts, we thought we’d share some interesting articles and conversations that can give you great information on what NZ could be doing with 1 billion dollars instead.
The Spinoff
https://www.rewiring.nz/news/mike-casey-discusses-the-lng-terminal-decision-on-the-hoon
https://www.rewiring.nz/news/bernard-hickey-why-not-spend-2-7b-on-solar-batteries-instead
https://350.org.nz/pr-reactions-lng-announcement-feb-2026/
Some NZ Community Energy Success Stories
Check out 350.0rg web site. There are a few communities that have been successful generating community power to share.
https://350.org.nz/we-can-produce-our-own-power/
Welcome
Maree Quinn
Some Interesting Reading
Our last committee meeting was a good reminder about the wonderful LIFT Library that has so many amazing books for members to borrow. Just in-case you aren’t aware of the library it’s run by LETS member Juliet Adams from the Lyttelton Harbour Information Centre 20 Oxford Street Lyttelton 10-3pm daily. The library comes under the banner of Project Lyttelton and for a once off $20 membership fee you can borrow books that focus on
L=LE, I=Inspiration, F=Facts, T=Transition (LE= Living Economies https://www.livingeconomies.nz/) .
Juliet wanted to highlight a new book in her collection by Bill McKibben - Here Comes the Sun. This book focuses on solar power. In her January newsletter she shared a review of this book by Kim Stanley Robinson.
*“With plainspoken eloquence and immense clarity, B… M……. describes the rapid transition to a solar-powered civilization as already begun and gaining momentum fast. This is good news, as it will lead to a healthier and more-just future for everyone; and yet there is opposition to this process from easily identified vested interests. So there are political battles to be fought, and in that ongoing struggle this book will be a crucial aid: it brings the news, it maps the situation, it gives courage. Read it and see.”*
Following on the topic of books, LETS was gifted two interesting books from Rewiring Aotearoa for Christmas. The first is The Wires That Bind - Electrification and Community Renewal by Saul Griffith’s. Saul is the visionary Australian who co-founded Rewiring USA and then went on to start Rewiring Australia. The book explores Saul’s return to Australia during Covid after living for over 20 years in the USA and his quest to create an electric renewable future for Australia.
When you have been away for years, what better than to take a road trip with your mum reconnect and see the state of play of renewables from town to town in regional Australia.The book visits communities Australia wide and Saul meets many inspiring women creating local community energy projects including Yackandandah that LETS was so impressed with. His journey via EV discovers all the interesting community projects nation wide as well as giving detailed information about electricity in general for the Australian market and his dreams for electrification transforming the Australian economy.
Once the committee has had a chance to read this book it will be donated to the LIFT Library for the wider community to borrow.
To book your ticket please register at
https://events.humanitix.com/lets-speaker-series-benefits-of-community-energy-in-lyttelton-harbour
Lovely Christmas Surprise
While the LETS team are very new to Rewiring Aotearoa, we received the best Christmas gift from Rewiring Aotearoa - several kilos of export quality farm fresh cherries. Founder Mike Casey and his crew are famous for setting up the first fully electric cherry orchard farm in New Zealand. You may know the story. An orchard was set up from scratch in 2019 with the aim of being fossil fuel free. Fossil fuel farm machinery has been swapped out for electric tractors, farm vehicles etc. The bulk of farm electricity is generated from a large solar array with batteries. Mike set out to show New Zealand that not only farms could be fossil fuel free but so could all businesses and households. Visit https://electriccherries.nz/ for more information.
Solar Walk - Are You Interested?
Are you interested to visit a few Lyttelton homes that have solar and batteries? It’s a great opportunity to see how systems work and ask questions from people who have already installed systems. We are planning a solar walk for March. If you are interested to take part please contact communityenergylytt@gmail.com with your availability and we can set a date and time that works for the most people. Last year we visited committee members Juliet Neill and Wendy Everingham’s solar set ups. This year we plan to visit the homes of Tony Ussher and Dana Dopleach.
Dates for your Diary
Events coming up:
Feb 23rd - LETS Committee meeting 7pm 54a Oxford St Project Lyttelton
Mar 7th - Catch Up at LETS stall at the Lyttelton Farmers Market
Mar ? - Solar Walk - If you are keen contact**LETS**
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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