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Ryan Bridge: How much will Winter cost us this year? · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: She was a chilly weekend, wasn't she? Even in Auckland
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: it was five degrees. We had the heat pump cranking
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the entire weekend. I spoke to a friend of Marlborough
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: last night who had the fire going all week and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: they actually had a proper frost. It's right now you
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: start thinking, though, isn't it? How much is all this
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: going to cost? Me? And the answer, because I checked
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: this morning the power bill, the answer was for May
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty dollars for a house of two
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: people one dog. Already we've spent seventy dollars for June,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: which what are we the ninth of June At the moment.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: This is one of the few bills that I actually
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: pay in our household, so it's one of the few
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that I really notice. It's not going through the roof
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: tracking roughly the same as last year. And disclaimer for
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: those of you thinking this is an outrageous amount, our
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: place is old and cold, pretty poorly ventilated, and basically
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: you need either aircorn in the summer on all the
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: time or heat in the winter. There is good news
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: on the energy front though for twenty twenty five, not
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: that it directly affects us ALL more than big industrial users,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: but by virtue of that us All Forsythe bar released
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: an energy note on Friday. They reckon we'll avoid another
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: big energy crunch this winter, but we will return to
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: one in twenty twenty six. So no blackouts for twenty
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: twenty five, which is good. The reason we've avoided this
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: is because the electricity producers did to deal with methodex
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and we've had rain, so the hydrolinks have been given
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a top up. To avoid future blackouts, we'll need to
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: cut industrial demand, which is not great for business, and
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: burn more coal, and that brings us to gas, a
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: shortage of which caused last year's energy price crunch. Forsyth
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Bar reckons the government's push for gas is actually unlikely
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: to solve our problems. It takes two to three years
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to get a gas field up and running. First, you
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: have to find it right now, nobody's even looking. No
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: gas fields are being explored. By the time you get
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: gas out of the government's two hundred million dollar budget
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: buy in, the energy shortages will likely have past. It's
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: one thing to let the producers go it alone and
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: risk their investment in capital. It's another to put our
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: money on the line to develop these fields. There's a
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: genuine question about whether this is smart investment in our future,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: or if taxpayer money is being wasted here, a bit
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: like the heat escaping from my old house. For more
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Talks at B from five am weekdays, or follow the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: podcast on iHeartRadio.