Kiwipower to deliver real power to the people

Wednesday, 22 July 2026

Chlöe Swarbrick is Green Party co-leader.

OPINION: We’re in the grips of the biggest fossil fuel shock the world has ever experienced. Our country is wildly exposed to this imported inflation, which means things are getting and will get more expensive.

We have a choice. Either keep feeding the ever expensive and volatile fossil fuel time bomb at the centre of our economy, or we can choose to defuse the damn bomb and guarantee affordability, resilience and local jobs.

Our grandparents and great-grandparents built our energy system, but two right-wing Governments sold it off for parts. New Zealanders now pay the fourth highest power prices in the OECD.

This week, the Greens have delivered the energy strategy industry has desperately been calling for; to lower power bills, reduce our reliance on imported fossil fuels and provide certainty to invest and keep jobs in this country.

Read more:

• Greens push for state-owned ‘Kiwipower’ energy company funded by wealth tax

• Labour unveils $160m household solar package funded from Gas Security Fund

• National promises renewable energy fund for households, repaid through rates

There are three basic levels to our plan.

Firstly, the home. When the fossil fuel crisis first hit, the Greens wrote to National ministers offering our 15 Green Party votes to slap solar on households, saving New Zealanders a conservative $1500 per household per year. Our support to help Parliament get on with this before the election still stands.

We would guarantee a renter’s right to plug-in solar with common sense regulation. But the cheapest energy is what you don’t use. So we’re building on the great Green Warmer Kiwi Homes scheme, which over the past 17 years has insulated hundreds of thousands of households – and will now also help people transition from gas to electricity.

Secondly, at the community level, we’ll expand the successful Community Renewable Energy Fund to roll out generation and batteries on local infrastructure like schools, libraries and marae. We’ll put solar panels on half of all public homes and work to mandate new public builds install them as a matter of course.

We’ll fix the rules to allow those generating energy for the grid to be paid fairly for what you contribute, and enable common-sense trading and sharing of locally-generated power.

It’s here in the home and community where New Zealanders will get the most immediate savings. Instead of just thinking big, efficient and sensible energy systems think distributed and diversified, building in resilience at every level.

Which is where we come to the market. The major power companies control 85% of that “market”, and in the decade following their partial privatisation, they’ve paid out almost two and a half times more shareholder dividends than they’ve invested in maintaining their assets and building new generation.

I’ll let you decide whether your astronomical power bills have been caused by this very interesting set of highly profitable facts, or you’d prefer to wave it away as mere causation.

Frontier Economics, the OECD and Infrastructure Commission have all identified that the major barrier to restore a more affordable and resilient energy system is our “dry year” problem. Basically, we need sustainable back-up power when the wind isn’t blowing, the sun isn’t shining and the rain isn’t pouring.

The gentailers aren’t building it. Buying them back would cost billions, build no new assets and simply line the pockets of shareholders.

After canvassing all the available options and trade-offs, it’s clear that we need an entity specifically focused on firming capacity that operates in the best interest of New Zealanders – which means the people of this country own and control it.

This is Kiwipower. A new, publicly owned company that will invest in renewable back-up power to smooth out the system, secure affordable hedging contracts to keep manufacturing and jobs here and fix the problem that a profit-driven system simply refuses to.

Initially, Kiwipower would contract for existing firming at a legislated fair return from the pre-existing generators, then offer it to the market on transparent and fair terms. Over time, it’ll invest, sensibly, at arm’s length from politicians, to build renewable firming generation.

This gives new, independent renewable generators the confidence to invest, helps social retailers offer affordable long-term contracts, and supports retention and decarbonisation of industries currently squeezed by high wholesale prices.

Kiwipower is the practical alternative to doubling down on expensive and unreliable fossil fuels, such as imported LNG.

You don’t need to be a tree-hugger to see that the most cost-effective, economically sensible investment we can make right now is in producing our own energy here, on our own shores. Wind, sun, rain and geothermal aren’t coming through the Strait of Hormuz.

The existential threat of climate change aside, burning more money searching for finite oil and gas in the face of guaranteed literal renewable energy is a farce.

We can lower power bills and keep jobs here at home through cleaner energy. The Greens will deliver real power to the people.