Rose Family Wines Renewable Charge

Rose Family Wines are pioneering renewable energy Power Purchase Agreements (PPA’s) with EVA Marketplace, connecting renewable energy producers directly to consumers.

EVA Marketplace, founded by Paul Coster, is the first New Zealand company to facilitate agreements between independent buyers and sellers of renewable electricity directly.

They also facilitate bundling of PPA’s into existing power bills, to simplify the process of decreasing business carbon footprints and present usage of sustainable energy in a tangible way.

PPA agreements mean both and users and producers work on a set price rather than being subject to power pricing fluctuations while also directly financing more renewable energy projects from the company that generates their renewable power just by paying their bills.

“When I returned from the UK two years ago, I noticed New Zealand didn’t have a renewable energy marketplace or the sleeving agreements that have become increasingly common across the UK, USA and Europe, so decided to fill that gap” says Paul.

“We approached a few businesses in Marlborough because we knew there were a few renewable electricity projects close to completion. Rose Family Estate were looking to make their wine production more sustainable and were eager to give us a go.”

“One of our winemakers, Nick Entwhistle, had a mutual connection with Paul and casually suggested it– we were really curious about exploring solar energy, but found our facilities aren’t that practical to install solar panels on but EVA sounded like a great solution,” says Rose Family Wines General Manager Lindsay Parkinson.

“It suits us to be producing and using solar energy in Marlborough to produce Marlborough wine, while sticking to our New Zealand wine industry goals. It is a win-win situation for all parties as we run on more renewable energy and meet our sustainability targets while supporting other local businesses”.

EVA’s next step is to reach out to more businesses in the commercial, industrial and government sectors, while also expanding the availability of their services into more energy retailers. The power provider for Rose Family Wines comes from Energy Marlborough’s solar power grid. While production doesn’t cover all the energy needed, Parkinson is open to more supply as it becomes available with new solar power plans in the pipeline.

Mercury Energy is currently the only energy retailer that combines their power bills with EVA’s PPA system in one bill, but Coster is keen to make it accessible for any business through their bills and there has been interest from other retailers.

“When we looked to change our energy provider, Mercury Energy had already been in discussion with EVA so it all aligned”, says Parkinson.

“It’s still very early days in our relationship. We haven’t even had our first full bill cycle yet and didn’t realise we were leaders in this field New Zealand wide, but this was an interesting project to get involved in because it ticks several goals toward our business’s sustainability”.

However, Rose Family Wines task themselves with improving their sustainability through making lots of small changes to their operations, and the arrangement with EVA Marketplace and local solar producers is another contribution

“PPA’s are an innovative idea in New Zealand we’re happy to run with as a pilot project to get the logistics organised – this is another step in the right direction for us, and we’ll be keen to expand the scope of it going forward as more projects come online”.