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Ohio utility retracts energy-efficiency plan despite potential savings

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Thursday, March 27, 2025

Another proposed energy-saving program is on the chopping block in Ohio. Duke Energy Ohio quietly dropped plans late last year to roll out a broad portfolio of programs that would have boosted energy efficiency and encouraged customers to use less electricity during times of peak demand. The plans, which would have saved ratepayers nearly $126 million over three years after deductions for costs, were part of a regulatory filing last April that sought to increase charges on customers’ electric bills. The move came after settlement talks with other stakeholders, including the state’s consumer advocate, which opposes collecting ratepayer money to provide the programs to people who aren’t in low-income groups. State regulators are now weighing whether to approve the settlement with a much smaller efficiency program focused on low-income neighborhoods. The case is the latest chapter in a struggle to restore utility-run programs for energy efficiency after House Bill 6, the 2019 nuclear and coal bailout law that also gutted the state’s renewable energy standards and eliminated requirements for utilities to help customers save energy. Studies show that utility-run energy-efficiency programs are among the cheapest ways to meet growing electricity needs and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Lower demand means fossil-fuel power plants can run less often. Less wasted energy translates into lower bills for customers who take advantage of efficiency programs. Even customers who don’t directly participate benefit because the programs lower peak demand when power costs the most. Energy efficiency can also put downward pressure on capacity prices — amounts paid by grid operators to electricity producers to make sure enough generation will be available for future needs. Due to high projected demand compared to available generation, capacity prices for most of the PJM region, including Ohio, will jump ninefold in June to about $270 per megawatt-day. “At a time when PJM is saying we’re facing capacity shortages, we should be doing everything we can to reduce demand,” said Rob Kelter, a senior attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy Center. Since 2019, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has generally rejected utility efforts to offer widely available, ratepayer-funded programs for energy efficiency. Legislative efforts to clarify that such programs are allowed under Ohio law have been introduced but failed to pass. In the current case, Duke Energy Ohio, which serves about 750,000 customers in southwestern Ohio, proposed a portfolio of efficiency offerings that would have cost ratepayers about $75 million over the course of three years but created net savings of nearly $126 million over the same period.

Another proposed energy-saving program is on the chopping block in Ohio. Duke Energy Ohio quietly dropped plans late last year to roll out a broad portfolio of programs that would have boosted energy efficiency and encouraged customers to use less electricity during times of peak demand. The plans, which would have…

Another proposed energy-saving program is on the chopping block in Ohio.

Duke Energy Ohio quietly dropped plans late last year to roll out a broad portfolio of programs that would have boosted energy efficiency and encouraged customers to use less electricity during times of peak demand. The plans, which would have saved ratepayers nearly $126 million over three years after deductions for costs, were part of a regulatory filing last April that sought to increase charges on customers’ electric bills.

The move came after settlement talks with other stakeholders, including the state’s consumer advocate, which opposes collecting ratepayer money to provide the programs to people who aren’t in low-income groups.

State regulators are now weighing whether to approve the settlement with a much smaller efficiency program focused on low-income neighborhoods.

The case is the latest chapter in a struggle to restore utility-run programs for energy efficiency after House Bill 6, the 2019 nuclear and coal bailout law that also gutted the state’s renewable energy standards and eliminated requirements for utilities to help customers save energy.

Studies show that utility-run energy-efficiency programs are among the cheapest ways to meet growing electricity needs and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Lower demand means fossil-fuel power plants can run less often. Less wasted energy translates into lower bills for customers who take advantage of efficiency programs. Even customers who don’t directly participate benefit because the programs lower peak demand when power costs the most.

Energy efficiency can also put downward pressure on capacity prices — amounts paid by grid operators to electricity producers to make sure enough generation will be available for future needs. Due to high projected demand compared to available generation, capacity prices for most of the PJM region, including Ohio, will jump ninefold in June to about $270 per megawatt-day.

“At a time when PJM is saying we’re facing capacity shortages, we should be doing everything we can to reduce demand,” said Rob Kelter, a senior attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy Center.

Since 2019, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has generally rejected utility efforts to offer widely available, ratepayer-funded programs for energy efficiency. Legislative efforts to clarify that such programs are allowed under Ohio law have been introduced but failed to pass.

In the current case, Duke Energy Ohio, which serves about 750,000 customers in southwestern Ohio, proposed a portfolio of efficiency offerings that would have cost ratepayers about $75 million over the course of three years but created net savings of nearly $126 million over the same period.

Read the full story here.
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Brisbane city council blocks plans for fridge-sized community batteries due to loss of green space

Local councillor says federal Labor should not be ‘plonking giant batteries in public parks’ though no other council has refused development applications in the stateElection 2025 live updates: Australia federal election campaignInteractive guide to electorates in the Australian electionGina: the billionaire who wants to make Australia greatSee all our Australian election 2025 coverageGet ourbreaking news email,free app ordaily news podcastThe Brisbane city council has stymied a federal government renewable energy scheme by denying three development applications for community batteries the size of a fridge due to loss of green space.The PowerShaper XL batteries, which range in capacity between 90kW and 180kWh, are about the size of an NBN or traffic signal box – or a fridge. Continue reading...

The Brisbane city council has stymied a federal government renewable energy scheme by denying three development applications for community batteries the size of a fridge due to loss of green space.The PowerShaper XL batteries, which range in capacity between 90kW and 180kWh, are about the size of an NBN or traffic signal box – or a fridge.But development applications for three sites, at an old Scouts Hall in Nundah, a substation in Newmarket and the Penley Street end of Woodbine Street in the Gap, were denied by Brisbane city council. All up, the trio would cost about $2.24m.The batteries were funded through the commonwealth’s $200m communities batteries for household solar program.Energy Queensland won federal grant funding for batteries in 12 communities, including other Brisbane suburbs. It has approval to install them in Coorparoo and Moorooka.The civic cabinet chair for environment, parks and sustainability, Tracy Davis, a former LNP MP, said the council does not support “plonking giant batteries in public parks”.“These bogus claims about community batteries are just a desperate attempt for relevance from a clueless Labor candidate,” she said.“With the election now called, the federal Labor government has been caught out failing to deliver on its own commitment about community batteries and is now trying to blame local councils.”Brisbane’s lord mayor, Adrian Schrinner, was one of the loudest backers of a plan to convert part of one the city’s largest parks into a stadium for the Olympics, despite claims it would significantly reduce one of the city’s biggest green spaces.The federal energy minister, Chris Bowen, said three rejected batteries would help “nearly 1,000 households” power their homes with locally created green energy.In a letter to Schrinner, the federal government asked the city council to either reconsider their opposition or identify alternative sites within the same suburbs that they would support.“The batteries will store solar energy for later use and sharing, support further solar installations in these suburbs, as well [as] contribute to lowering emissions, put downward pressure on household electricity costs and provide network benefits,” Bowen said in a letter to the mayor.Sources have told the Guardian that no other local government body has refused a development application in Queensland and in other states councils had offered alternatives when objecting.Rebecca Hack, the Labor candidate for Ryan – which includes the outer north-west suburb the Gap – said the council’s decision flew in the face of claimed green credentials.“The LNP lord mayor is constantly trying to tell ratepayers how much he cares for the environment,” she said. “Well, he can start right now by putting aside his personal politics and getting these batteries approved, so they can be built as soon as possible.”skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionEnergy Queensland was contacted for comment.The Queensland Conservation Council’s director, David Copeman, said he would be concerned if the council had adopted a “not in my back yard approach”.“If there was a particular tree which was seen as a character tree or protected under council rules, then obviously you’d relocate, and that’s what we’d expect from appropriate planning, but that should be something that the council and Energy Queensland can work out,” he said.He said planning rules should take into account not just the environmental costs of a project, but its benefits – particularly if the counterfactual means using more coal for longer.Copeman said he is “concerned that the council is delaying the rollout of this important infrastructure”.“Brisbane city council, which has made a lot out of its commitment to net zero … for it to backslide on rolling out renewable energy infrastructure would be very concerning.”Davis said the federal government had known “for months” that the council did not support the sites.“Instead of petty political games, Labor must ensure Brisbane finally gets its fair share of federal road and transport funding and stop funnelling billions of dollars in additional investment into Sydney and Melbourne,” she said.The PowerShaper XL is about 700 x 900 x 2,000mm and weighs 600kg.

Energy
Government

A court ordered Greenpeace to pay a pipeline company $660M. What happens next?

Experts called the verdict “beyond punitive.” The organization plans to appeal and has already filed a countersuit in Europe.

A jury in North Dakota ordered Greenpeace to pay more than $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace in 2019, alleging that it had orchestrated a vast conspiracy against the company by organizing historic protests on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in 2016 and 2017.  In its lawsuit, Energy Transfer Partners accused three Greenpeace entities — two in the U.S. and one based in Amsterdam — of violating North Dakota trespassing and defamation laws, and of coordinating protests aimed to stop the 1,172-mile pipeline from transporting oil from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields to a terminal in Illinois. Greenpeace maintained it played only a minor supporting role in the Indigenous-led movement.  “This was obviously a test case meant to scare others from exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful protest,” said Deepa Padmanabha, a senior legal adviser for Greenpeace USA. “They’re trying to buy silence; that silence is not for sale.” Legal and Indigenous experts said the lawsuit was a“textbook” example of a “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” known colloquially as a SLAPP suit, a tactic used by corporations and wealthy individuals to drown their critics in legal fees. They also criticized Energy Transfer for using the lawsuit to undermine tribes’ treaty rights by exaggerating the role of out-of-state agitators. The three Greenpeace entities named in the lawsuit — Greenpeace Inc., a U.S.-based advocacy arm; Greenpeace Funds, which raises money and is also based in the U.S.; and Greenpeace International, based in the Netherlands — are now planning their next moves, including an appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court and a separate countersuit in the European Union.  As part of a previous appeal to move the trial more impartial court, Greenpeace submitted a 33-page document to the state Supreme Court explaining that the jurors in Morton County, North Dakota — where the trial occurred — would likely be biased against the defendants, since they were drawn from the same area where the anti-pipeline protests had taken place and disrupted daily life. The request included results from a 2022 survey of 150 potential jurors in Morton County conducted by the National Jury Project, a litigation consulting company, which found 97 percent of residents said they could not be a fair or impartial juror in the lawsuit. Greenpeace also pointed out that nine of the 20 final jurors had either “direct personal experience” with the protests, or a friend or family member with direct personal experience. Deepa Padmanabha, a Greenpeace staff attorney, outside the Morton County Memorial Courthouse in North Dakota. Stephanie Keith / Greenpeace Pat Parenteau, an emeritus professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School, said the chances that the North Dakota Supreme Court will overturn the lower court’s verdict are “probably less than 50 percent.” What may be more likely, he said, is that the Supreme Court will reduce the “outrageous” amount of money charged by the Morton County jury, which includes various penalties that doubled the $300 million in damages that Energy Transfer had originally claimed. “The court does have a lot of discretion in reducing the amount of damages,” he said. He called the Morton County verdict “beyond punitive. This is scorched Earth, what we’re seeing here.” Depending on what happens at the North Dakota Supreme Court, Parenteau also said there’s a basis for appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, based on the First Amendment free speech issues involved. But, he added, the move could be “a really dangerous proposition,” with the court’s conservative supermajority and the precedent such a case could set. A federal decision in favor of Energy Transfer could limit any organizations’ ability to protest nationwide — and not just against pipelines.  Amsterdam-based Greenpeace International, which coordinates 24 independent Greenpeace chapters around the world but is legally separate from them, is also fighting back. It countersued Energy Partners in the Netherlands in February, making use of a new anti-SLAPP directive in the EU that went into effect in May 2024. Greenpeace International is only on the hook for a tiny fraction of the more than $600 million charged against the three Greenpeace bodies by the Morton County jury. Its countersuit in the EU wouldn’t change what has happened in U.S. courts. Instead, it seeks to recover costs incurred by the Amsterdam-based branch during its years-long fights against the Morton County lawsuit and an earlier, federal case in 2017 that was eventually dismissed.  Greenpeace International’s trial will begin in Dutch courts in July and is the first test of the EU’s anti-SLAPP directive. According to Kristen Casper, general counsel for Greenpeace International, the branch in the EU has a strong case because the only action it took in support of the anti-pipeline protests was to sign an open letter — what she described as a clear case of protected public participation. Eric Heinze, a free speech expert and professor of law and humanities at Queen Mary University of London, said the case appeared “black and white.”  “Normally I don’t like to predict,” he said, “but if I had to put money on this I would bet for Greenpeace to win.” While Greenpeace’s various entities may have to pay damages as ordered by U.S. courts, the result of the case in the EU, Casper said a victory would send an international message against “corporate bullying and weaponization of the law.” Padmanabha said that regardless of the damages that the Greenpeace USA incurs, the organization isn’t going away any time soon. “You can’t bankrupt the movement,” she said. “What we work on, our campaigns and our commitments — that is not going to change.” In response to request for comment, Energy Transfer said the Morton County jury’s decision was a victory for the people of Mandan and “for all law-abiding Americans who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law. That Greenpeace has been held responsible is a win for all of us.” Nick Estes, a professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota and member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe who wrote a book about the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, said the case was about more than just punishing Greenpeace — it was a proxy attack on the water protectors at Standing Rock and the broader environmental justice movement. He said it showed what could happen “if you step outside the path of what they consider as an acceptable form of protest.”“They had to sidestep the actual context of the entire movement, around treaty rights, land rights, water rights, and tribal sovereignty because they couldn’t win that fight,” he said. “They had to go a circuitous route, and find a sympathetic court to attack the environmental movement.” Janet Alkire, the chair of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said in a March 3 statement that the Morton County case was “frivolously alleging defamation and seeking money damages, designed to shut down all voices supporting Standing Rock.” She said the company also used propaganda to discredit the tribe during and after the protests.“Part of the attack on our tribe is to attack our allies,” Alkire wrote. “The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will not be silenced.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A court ordered Greenpeace to pay a pipeline company $660M. What happens next? on Mar 21, 2025.

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Indigenous
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Portland City Council demands mayor investigate violations of Zenith Energy franchise agreement

The Portland City Council passed a resolution demanding Mayor Keith Wilson investigate potential violations of Zenith Energy’s franchise agreement.

The Portland City Council passed a resolution demanding Mayor Keith Wilson investigate potential violations of Zenith Energy’s franchise agreement. The 11-1 vote Wednesday comes on the heels of city staff approving a controversial land-use credential for Zenith – a key step for the company to continue offloading and storing crude oil and renewable fuel at the Northwest Portland fuels hub.The resolution also urges City Auditor Simone Rede to investigate the city administrative staff’s handling of Zenith’s land-use applications and demands top bureau leaders to place all prior communications between the city and Zenith into the public record, among other directives. Wilson told councilors he will follow their will to set up an investigation. Rede said her office is still evaluating the idea.“The Ombudsman, which is in the Office of the Auditor, will assess Council’s request against established criteria for investigation, and whether it raises issues that could be more appropriately addressed through a lobbying investigation, a complaint to the City’s fraud hotline, or another entity,” Rede said via email. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality had asked Zenith to obtain the new land-use compatibility statement from the city after it uncovered Zenith had installed a valve and pipes at a dock owned by another company and had used the dock for three years without telling state regulators. The agency also fined Zenith $372,600 for the unauthorized dock use. The February approval of the land-use document paves the way for Zenith to apply for a new state air quality permit to extend its Portland operations. Environmental activists and some residents have opposed Zenith’s presence in Portland for years and have pressured the new City Council to look into the company’s violations and the city’s handling of Zenith, including lack of public transparency and public input. City staff have maintained Zenith’s approval, like myriad other land-use decisions, should be purely administrative. The Houston-based Zenith is one of 11 companies with fuel terminals at the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub on the Willamette River. It’s the only company at the hub that has become a target of concerns over earthquakes, fuel spills and fires, likely because it’s the only state-regulated facility that still stores crude oil. Zenith also stores renewable diesel, biodiesel and sustainable aviation fuel and has pledged to fully transition to renewable fuels by 2027.The city originally denied Zenith’s land-use credential in 2021. But a year later, after a lengthy legal battle, the city reversed course and gave Zenith its approval, touting the company’s pledge to fully transition to renewable fuel by 2027. Zenith critics then pushed state regulators to scrutinize the company, which led the Department of Environmental Quality to crack down on the rogue dock use.Councilors passed the resolution after first striking a provision that would require the mayor to use independent outside counsel as part of his investigation. A second amendment also removed a lengthy letter from advocates attached to the resolution that listed and categorized multiple comments made by bureau officials at a January city work session on Zenith as misleading, false or “a conscious lie.” Councilor Steve Novick, who cast the only no vote, said he supports the mayor’s investigation but voted against the amended resolution because he felt it unfairly condemned city employees. “I can’t possibly vote for this resolution… without effectively saying that I think city employees are knaves and liars. And, having looked at some of the allegations against them, I think in most cases it’s shaggy dog stories, rather than malfeasance,” Novick said before voting.Several other council members, including council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney, said they were concerned the investigations would turn into “a witch hunt” but ultimately voted to support the resolution.Angelita Morillo, one of four councilors who submitted the resolution, said that wasn’t the intent, but added that it’s critical to ensure powerful administrative leaders are ethical and competent.“They are the gatekeepers of information. They can make sure elected officials receive or not receive pieces of information before we make a vote on certain policies,” Morillo said. “And so we need to have the utmost trust in them … and need to know they are accountable to the public and to us.”Pirtle-Guiney called the investigations an opportunity for oversight and accountability.“At the end, we can restore trust with all communities across the city and then we can get to work looking at the future of our land-use system and ensuring one that allows us to make sustainable choices,” she said. Councilor Olivia Clark, who voted for the resolution, said the council must start thinking about how Zenith fits in with Portland’s future climate goals. City staff have described Zenith’s transition to renewable fuels as an integral part in the city reaching its greenhouse gas emission-reduction mandates.“Zenith is supposed to be a part of the solution to the transition away from fossil fuels,” Clark said. “So this means we’re living with an uncomfortable trade-off. We must invest in strategies to lower our use of fossil fuels … and at the same time do everything we can to mitigate the threats posed by both oil trains and the CEI fuel tanks in our midst.” Neither Zenith officials nor advocates spoke at the meeting because the council didn’t allow public comments. “Zenith has worked closely and transparently with city and state regulators to ensure our operations are fully understood and properly permitted,” Grady Reamer, the company’s chief commercial officer, said in a statement to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reamer added that Zenith’s terminal “plays a critical role in making renewable fuel available across the region” and said the company would continue to work with city and state officials to ensure compliance with all relevant safety and environmental standards.In the end, Councilor Eric Zimmerman acknowledged the resolution does nothing to stop Zenith. Though activists have challenged the city’s newly issued land-use approval in court, the DEQ said it had already evaluated it and determined it’s sufficient to resume the state air quality permitting process. State regulators said they plan to launch the public comment period in the near future. — Gosia Wozniacka covers environmental justice, climate change, the clean energy transition and other environmental issues. Reach her at gwozniacka@oregonian.com or 971-421-3154.Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.

Energy
Activism
Land Use

Nuclear fusion fuel could be made greener with new chemical process

Lithium-6 is a crucial material for nuclear fusion reactors, but isolating it is challenging – now researchers have found a way to do this without using toxic mercury

Illustration of a nuclear fusion reactorScience Photo Library / Alamy Limitless power from nuclear fusion may be a step closer following the accidental discovery of a new process to supply the isotope lithium-6, which is vital to providing fuel for a sustainable fusion reactor. The least challenging fusion process involves combining two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, to yield helium, a neutron and a lot of energy. Tritium, a rare, radioactive isotope of hydrogen, is difficult and expensive to source. “Breeder” reactors seek to manufacture tritium by bombarding lithium with neutrons. Lithium atoms exist as two stable isotopes: lithium-7 makes up 92.5 per cent of the element in nature and the rest is lithium-6. The rarer isotope reacts much more efficiently with neutrons to produce tritium in a fusion reaction. However, the two lithium isotopes are extremely difficult to separate. Until now, this has only been achieved at a large scale using a highly toxic process reliant on mercury. Due to the environmental impact, this process has not been employed in Western countries since the 1960s and researchers are forced to rely on dwindling stockpiles of lithium-6 produced before the ban. Sarbajit Banerjee at ETH Zurich in Switzerland and his colleagues have now discovered an alternative method serendipitously, while they were looking at ways to clean water contaminated by oil drilling. The researchers noticed that the cement membranes they employed, containing a lab-made compound called zeta vanadium oxide, collected large quantities of lithium and seemed to disproportionately isolate lithium-6. Zeta vanadium oxide contains tunnels surrounded by oxygen atoms, says Banerjee. “Lithium ions move through these tunnels, which happen to be just the right size [to bind lithium-6],” he says. “We found that lithium-6 ions are bound more strongly and are retained within the tunnels.” The researchers don’t fully understand why lithium-6 is preferentially retained, but based on simulations, they believe it has to do with the interactions between the ions and the atoms at the edges of the tunnels, says Banerjee. He says they have only isolated less than a gram of lithium-6 so far, but they hope to scale up the process so it can produce tens of kilograms of the isotope. A commercial fusion reactor is expected to need tonnes of the element every day. “However, these challenges pale in comparison to the bigger challenges with plasma reactors and laser ignition for fusion,” says Banerjee.

Energy
Nature
Science

If NZ wants to decarbonise energy, we need to know which renewables deliver the best payback

The energy return on investment for wind and solar technologies in New Zealand is becoming comparable to hydropower.

Getty ImagesA national energy strategy for Aotearoa New Zealand was meant to be ready at the end of last year. As it stands, we’re still waiting for a cohesive, all-encompassing plan to meet the country’s energy demand today and in the future. One would expect such a plan to first focus on reducing energy demand through improved energy efficiency across all sectors. The next step should be greater renewable electrification of all sectors. However, questions remain about the cradle-to-grave implications of investments in these renewable resources. We have conducted life-cycle assessments of several renewable electricity generation technologies, including wind and solar, that the country is investing in now. We found the carbon and energy footprints are quite small and favourably complement our current portfolio of renewable electricity generation assets. Meeting future demand The latest assessments provided by the Ministry of Business, Employment and Innovation echo earlier work by the grid operator Transpower. Both indicate that overall demand for electricity could nearly double by 2050. Many researchers believe these scenarios are an underestimate. One study suggests the power generation capacity will potentially need to increase threefold over this period. Other modelling efforts project current capacity will need to increase 13 times, especially if we want to decarbonise all sectors and export energy carriers such as hydrogen. This is, of course, because we want all new generation to come from renewable resources, with much lower capacity factors (the percentage of the year they deliver power) associated with their variability. Additional storage requirements will also be enormous. Following the termination of work on a proposed pumped hydro project, other options need investigating. Wind and solar are becoming the primary renewable technologies. Shutterstock/Kyohei Miyazaki Building renewable generation The latest World Energy Outlook published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that wind and solar, primarily photovoltaic panels, are quickly taking over as the primary renewable technologies. This is also true in Aotearoa New Zealand. An updated version of the generation investment survey, commissioned by the Electricity Authority, shows most of the committed and actively pursued projects (to be commissioned by 2030) are solar photovoltaic and onshore wind farms. Offshore wind projects are on the horizon, too, but have been facing challenges such as proposed seabed mining in the same area and a lack of price stabilisation measures typical in other jurisdictions. New legislation aims to address some of these challenges. Distributed solar power (small-scale systems to power homes, buildings and communities) has seen near-exponential growth. Our analysis indicates wind (onshore and offshore) and distributed solar will make an almost equal contribution to power generation by 2050, with a slightly larger share by utility-scale solar. Cradle-to-grave analyses The main goal is to maintain a stable grid with secure and affordable electricity supply. But there are other sustainability considerations associated with what happens at the end of renewable technologies’ use and where their components come from. The IEA’s Global Critical Minerals Outlook shows the fast-growing global demand for a suite of materials with complex supply chains. We have also investigated the materials intensity of taking up these technologies in Aotearoa New Zealand, and discussed the greater dependence on those supply chains. The challenges in securing these metals in a sustainable manner include environmental and social impacts associated with the mining and processing of the materials and the manufacturing of different components that need to be transported for implementation here. There are also operating and maintenance requirements, including the replacement of components, and the dismantling of the assets in a responsible manner. We have undertaken comprehensive life-cycle assessments, based on international standards, of the recently commissioned onshore Harapaki wind farm, a proposed offshore wind farm in the South Taranaki Bight, a utility-scale solar farm in Waikato and distributed solar photovoltaic systems, with and without batteries, across the country. The usual metrics are energy inputs and carbon emissions because they describe the efficiency of these technologies. They are considered a first proxy of whether a technology is appropriate for a given context. Beyond that, we used the following specific metrics, as summarised in the table below: GWP: global warming potential (carbon emissions during a technology’s life cycle per energy unit delivered). CPBT: carbon payback time (how long a technology needs to be operational before its life cycle emissions equal the avoided emissions, either using the grid and its associated emissions or conventional natural gas turbines). CED: cumulative energy demand over the life cycle of a technology. EPBT: energy payback time (how long a technology needs to be operational before the electricity it generates equals the CED). EROI: energy return on investment (the amount of usable energy delivered from an energy source compared to the energy required to extract, process and distribute that source, essentially quantifying the “profit” from energy production). There is much debate about the minimum energy return on investment that makes an energy source acceptable. A value of more than ten is generally viewed as positive. Life cycle assessment metrics of wind and solar power in Aotearoa New Zealand. Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, CC BY-SA For all technologies we assessed, the overall greenhouse gas emissions are lower than the grid emissions factor. Because of New Zealand’s already low-emissions grid, the carbon payback time is around three to seven years for utility-scale generation. But for small-scale, distributed generation it can be up to 13 years. If the displacement of gas turbines is considered, the payback is halved. Energy return on investment is above ten for all technologies, but utility-scale generation is better than distributed solar, with values of between 30 and 75. To put this into perspective, the energy return on investment for hydropower, if operated for 100 years, is reported to be 110. Utility-scale wind and solar being commissioned now have an operational life of 30 years but are typically expected to be refurbished. This means their energy return on investment is becoming comparable to hydropower. The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Energy
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