We’re committed to increasing solar generation as part of Aotearoa’s push towards 100% renewable electricity, whether that’s through building our own solar farms, supporting industrial and business customers with on-site solar or making home solar easy and affordable for residential customers.
Our pipeline of new renewable development projects includes proposed grid-scale solar farms in Northland and Canterbury.
Meridian also has power purchase agreements with a number of customers that see us own and operate commercial-scale solar on customer properties and sell the generation back to the customers. This portfolio generates more than two gigawatt hours of electricity per year.
Meridian and Powershop have great solar buy-back rates and between them nearly 8,000 residential customers generating electricity through their own solar panels. These customers on-sell around 25 gigawatt hours of electricity to Meridian Energy each year, which we resell into the grid.
We get it. You want to take control of your power bill and do your bit for the environment. We’ll help you harness the power of the sun and generate electricity. Lock in a competitive buy-back rate guaranteed for five years.
Certified Renewable Energy enables Meridian’s business customers to match the amount of electricity they use on an annual basis with an equivalent amount of the renewable electricity we put into the national grid. It’s an accredited and game-changing product that means companies can report market-based Scope 2 emissions – the ones linked to their electricity usage – as zero.
All net proceeds from Certified Renewable Energy is reinvested into community and business decarbonisation projects.
Electricity can be generated from the sun in a number of ways, but in most New Zealand residential solar power applications it’s photovoltaic solar panels that use sunlight to produce power. This type of solar energy is often abbreviated to PVs.
Heat-based solar power, referred to as concentrated solar thermal or concentrated solar power, is another common type of energy generated from the sun. It’s popular in large plant-scale and water-heating operations.
In a PV-based solar power solution:
Through our Community Decarbonisation Fund we’re investing in community groups that want to reduce their emissions. The Fund has distributed more than $1 million since 2021 into projects like solar installations and EVs, helping community groups decarbonise and lower their operating costs.
Solar energy generation is only part of what we do. Find out more about our hydro stations, wind farms and future projects.
The Zero network, powered by Meridian Energy, is the country’s second largest network of public EV chargers. We have more than 300 charge points, with plans to install more nationwide. It’s all about making it easier for you to go electric and navigate Aotearoa.
Tackling Zero is Meridian’s quarterly newsletter for people whose roles or studies are focused on sustainability, or for whom this is an area of interest. Each issue will offer Meridian’s insights into a topical sustainability issue, as well as stories on how we, our customers and supply chain partners are tackling sustainability. It also includes links to recent Meridian disclosures such as new policies and reports.