Axe Swings Over Electricity Commission

Stuff reports Gerry Brownlee’s review of the elec­tric­ity sec­tor. It’s not good news for bureau­crats – here’s a run-down (my thoughts in parenthesis):

• Elec­tric­ity Com­mis­sion abol­ished, func­tions moved to smaller energy author­ity (good);
• Com­merce Com­mis­sion to approve upgrade to the national grid (bad – why not the courts?);
• Allow­ing lines com­pa­nies to get back into retail­ing (good – means more competition);
• $15 mil­lion fund over three years to pro­mote cus­tomer switch­ing between retail­ers (bad – $15 mil­lion? Make the elec­tric­ity com­pa­nies adver­tise the fact?) ;
• Requir­ing generators/retailers to com­pen­sate con­sumers in the event of con­ser­va­tion cam­paigns or a dry-year power cut. The sort of com­pen­sa­tion being talked about is $10 a week ($10!? – waste of time);
• Trans­fer­ring power sta­tions between gen­er­a­tors (neu­tral – assume this is to help bal­ance the books);
• Merid­ian, Gen­e­sis and Mighty River Power under­tak­ing vir­tual asset swaps over 15 years to pro­vide more com­pe­ti­tion in the island where they cur­rently have lit­tle to no gen­er­a­tion capac­ity (bad – doesn’t make it easy to sell assets off!);
• Requir­ing all major elec­tric­ity gen­er­a­tors to put in place an acces­si­ble elec­tric­ity hedge mar­ket (neutral);

Update: No Right Turn is moan­ing he can’t buy 100% renew­able energy from Merid­ian Energy now. He says Merid­ian Energy trades on its clean green image. Surely then the best way to pre­vent that image from being tar­nished would be for the Gov­ern­ment to sell Merid­ian off, to stop politi­cians from horse trad­ing with its assets?

Tagged as: Electricity, FCK, Gerry Brownlee

Tagged as: Electricity • FCK • Gerry Brownlee