Axe Swings Over Electricity Commission

by Fiscally Conservative Kiwi on December 9, 2009

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?

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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

paul December 9, 2009 at 2:24 am

Prime Min­is­ter Brownlee!!!

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FCK December 9, 2009 at 3:59 am

Now, now… let’s not get ahead of ourselves!

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paul December 9, 2009 at 7:42 am

:-) mad­den­ing des­per­a­tion per­haps. the role appears vacant at present would you agree?

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apeteryx December 9, 2009 at 5:39 am

Ah. The start of the Big Quango Hunt. Points for destroy­ing a com­mis­sion, more points for dis­es­tab­lish­ing a min­istry. And min­is­te­r­ial posi­tion. My sug­ges­tions include

Te Puni Kokori –> to inter­nal affairs.
Min­istry of Women –> dis­es­tab­lish
Min­istry of Rac­ing –> Ag and Fish –> (both) to advi­sory group, under inter­nal affairs.
Con­ser­va­tion –> as above
Edu­ca­tion and Health –> advi­sory group, under inter­nal affairs

Any­one want to join in?

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FCK December 10, 2009 at 4:42 am

Move every­thing under Inter­nal Affairs?

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