Have Your Say

A gentle reminder. Look behind the curtain LOL

Here is a serious comment on the electricity system in NZ. It is worth a read.

GrowthNZ energy plan proposes eight steps for cheaper, cleaner electricity

GrowthNZ co-chairs Bowen Pan (top) and Anna Kominik say New Zealand has the capacity to be a superpower in renewable energy. Image / NZ Herald
Bowen Pan wasn’t born when New Zealand’s largest hydroelectric power station was commissioned at Manapōuri in 1972, but it is on his mind now as he tries to fire up his generation to build superabundant energy, even if that means a radical reset.
“The people who built our hydro stations … clearly weren’t just building it for themselves, and today we are still living off their work,” Pan says.

In 2002, Pan would have been a year off his crowning as Dux at Westlake Boys’ High School when the engineers finished the second tailrace that ramped up the station’s output to 800MW.
“I think the question we’re really posing and the proposals we are pushing are whether my kids and their kids will live off what we decide to actually put in place now,” he says.
The proposals are from GrowthNZ, what Pan calls a “civic movement”.

The former Meta executive is co-chair with Anna Kominik, a former Electricity Authority chairwoman.
“The bills are high because our energy system kind of persistently runs on shortages,” Pan says.
“Our back-ups are really expensive, and they tend to set the price, at least a wholesale price.

“It doesn’t help that the plans keep changing, so what we are really proposing is this long-term package that incentivises folks to actually build more cheap, clean power.”

Changing those incentives comes at steps two and three of a five-year, eight-step plan, “Powering a prosperous New Zealand”.
Step one is agreement of the kind that has eluded successive governments and opposition parties.
Steps four and five are a major regulatory overhaul.
The report notes energy regulation is split across four bodies: the Electricity Authority, the Commerce Commission, the Gas Industry Company and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
GrowthNZ suggests merging those functions to create one super-regulator made even larger by splitting Transpower to divide its dual roles as grid operator and regulator.
It suggests that might promote investment in batteries, demand responses and non-transmission solutions rather than yet more poles, pylons and wires.
It also suggests mandatory consolidation for the distribution companies that connect to the grid.

“We have 29 lines companies, and Australia has 10; we’ve got four regulator-policymaker entities,” Kominik says.
“Everyone’s got a job, and nobody’s accountable for a better outcome for consumers.”

Anna Kominik is co-chair at GrowthNZ and a former Electricity Authority chairwoman.
GrowthNZ’s energy plan also points out a conflict successive Governments have struggled with: regulating with one hand while collecting half a billion dollars a year in dividends from Genesis, Mercury and Meridian.

It proposes establishing a “clear institutional wall” and placing the Government’s gentailer shareholdings in “a Temasek-style holding company”, referring to the sovereign wealth fund of the kind Singapore runs with a commercial mandate, transparent reporting, and no role in energy policy or regulation.
GrowthNZ also supports a proposal similar to one put forward by Contact Energy five years ago and by the Frontier Economics review of the energy system published last year.
It wants a Government-owned “Thermal NewCo” that would own or contract the remaining thermal fleet and its fuel supply, such as Huntly power station, where Genesis maintains a coal-fired back-stop to the electricity system under contract with Contact, Mercury and Meridian.
That new company would sell firming cover to all buyers on equal terms, and retire that fleet as renewables, storage and demand flexibility take up the slack.
The GrowthNZ plan addresses more competitive pricing and proposes a national financing platform that tags the cost of home solar installations to a meter rather than a customer, so any obligation stays with the occupant of a home.
GrowthNZ’s plan has one more back-stop – structural separation of the retail and generation parts of those four major players, which it says is “a serious tool, not a slogan” and would be more complex than the break-up of Telecom into Chorus and Spark.
“Research suggests that, regulated well, vertical integration can be efficient and even cheaper than broken-up firms,” the report says.
For that reason, it argues for levelling the playing field and allowing and promoting open entry to new generators and retailers first, and resorting to break-ups only as “a credible, pre-designed escalation” with the triggers agreed and published.
For a civic movement, it certainly reads like a political or lobby group manifesto, so who is GrowthNZ and why should anyone pay attention?
A look at its website shows a cross-section of New Zealand entrepreneurship.
Venture capitalist Rob Coneybeer, who has made New Zealand a second home; those who’ve come home again such as Pan and wife Maya, or Nuvocargo founder Sam Blackman; local entrepreneur Cecilia Robinson, angel investor Suse Reynolds and many more.
Pan says GrowthNZ has more than 200 people involved directly with policy, operations and marketing and a wider circle of about 1000 supporters engaged across the country.
That’s more than enough to start a political party, and despite sounding like they’re running the policy formation for one, Pan and Kominik don’t want your vote, just your attention.
“Our only goal is for New Zealand to be broadly prosperous for every New Zealander,” Pan says.
“So that we can actually get to a better place for all of us and it’s not just concentrated in one part of the community,” Kominik adds.
“We have the capacity to be one of the world’s renewable energy superpowers,” Pan says.
“We are very far away from that right now, but if that’s something we want, we certainly have the natural endowments to actually achieve that.”

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/companies/energy/growthnz-energy-plan-proposes-eight-steps-for-cheaper-cleaner-electricity/premium/FNHAWRBYBZAQTC65OQQ5ZPD6Q4/

The Labour Party has unveiled its slogan for the 2026 election campaign, “Better starts now”.
The slogan will feature prominently on the election campaign, on the party’s billboards, slogans and TV ads.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins unveiled the slogan as he erected a campaign hoarding in Christchurch.
Labour is currently polling roughly neck and neck with National and is likely to be able to form a Government if it can do a deal with the Opportunity Party, which National leader Christopher Luxon has ruled out.
The campaign ramped up over the weekend with the release of Labour’s fiscal plan, which said the party would achieve a surplus by the old measure in 2029/30 and reduce net debt to 20% of gross domestic product (GDP).
The debt promise would be met using an old debt measure which was introduced by Grant Robertson but later scrapped by the coalition Government.
“Labour will get the books back into shape but we won’t do it by making life harder for New Zealanders or cutting the services they reply on. You can’t cut your way to growth,” Hipkins said, as he announced the rules.
“We’ll invest in the things that make New Zealand stronger – our hospitals and schools, infrastructure, skills and the businesses that create jobs,” he said.
National’s finance spokeswoman Nicola Willis attacked Labour’s other target, which is to allow core Crown expenses to rise to 33% of GDP.
She fired out a press release on Monday morning saying that with spending currently at 31.2% of GDP, Labour “will need to collect an additional $10.3 billion in core Crown revenue by 2031″ if it is to get spending close to 33% of GDP.
“Labour continues to claim that its capital gains tax is the only new tax it will implement, if elected. But that is incompatible with its stated goal of lifting spending and revenue to 33% of GDP.
“Labour’s capital gains tax is only expected to raise $1.35 billion in 2030/31. That leaves an $8.9 billion shortfall can only be reconciled with more new taxes or significant increases to existing taxes – or both,” Willis said.