Batteries = resilience

Описание: Right now, the North Island is dealing with the effects of yet another massive storm - and it's on its way south. Thousands of homes are without power, but many of those with solar and batteries have been able to keep on trucking.

A gas bottle, a wood burner and some candles might offer survivial. But keeping the WiFi on, the freezer cold and the water warm with your own generation and storage is real resilience - and, as Mike Casey says, it pays itself off with the savings throughout the year.

Batteries offer security at home, but we have also seen a few dairy farmers benefit. Rather than desperately try to fix an old generator that might not have been touched for years or scramble to find a new one when the lines went down last year, their solar and battery systems allowed them to keep milking, run the chillers and get the trucks in the collect it.

And with a big payment coming up this year after the sale of Fonterra's consumer brands, resilience would be a good way to spend your windfall.

The big batteries in EVs are another massive opportunity when it comes to improving our resilience, because they could run an average home for three or four days. Homes with solar would be able to keep them charged.

The emissions from all our fossil fuel machines are clearly increasing the intensity of storms. Switching to electric machines not only slashes those emissions, they can also help us cope with the immediate impacts of weather-related disasters.