Ian McLean Spokesperson for the Green Party

Building a house? Solar photovoltaic will provide all your electricity needs for about $10,000. Free power for the life of a house sounds like a good deal to me, and especially good for older folk on a limited income.

There are no consent costs for installing SPV in Tauranga. There is an operating cost for the link to the grid. But install the right SPV size and you will cover that too.

A friend who visited Melbourne commented: 'It is like the entire city is roofed with solar panels”.

After just a few years of government subsidies, generation from SPV panels on houses is approaching 2 per cent of Australia's total electricity demand. For places such as Perth, with few rivers to dam and not much wind, SPV is a huge opportunity.

So if NZ is so clean and green, why are we not solar? Are others showing us the way?

Australia and Germany are leading the grab for cheap SPV. Germany is ahead, with four times Australia's generation capacity on a per capita basis. However, Australian capacity increased ten-fold from 2009-2011and they are catching up, with commercial systems are already operating there.

NZ might be dragging its feet because the profitability and asset value of government-owned energy companies discourage subsidies for local electricity generation, as per the latest profit report from Meridian.

Yet solar systems create jobs. It is not good business to give $30 million to the international owners of an unprofitable smelter while refusing to invest in jobs linked to renewable energy generation and reduced infrastructure costs.

There are numerous environmental benefits. For example, surplus electricity from solar panels on your roof travels through the grid to the dams, meaning more water storage capacity in those dry summers that climate change is giving us.

Last week, Helen Clark told Tauranga: 'The world must focus on creating sustainable growth”. More SPV means less coal or oil used to create electricity, a reduced carbon footprint, and jobs that last. Central government may not want those benefits, but the Bay of Plenty does. Let's go hard and get them.

Ian McLean is a spokesperson for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. He can be contacted by calling 021 547556 or 07 579 4670 or by emailing: ian.mclean@greens.org.nz