Posts Tagged Electricity
Is There a Magic Bullet for Energy Pricing?
The following post was written by Bryan Leyland for KiwiBlog. Bryan is an engineer with over 60 years experience in the energy sector and regularly comments on various topics. He is a strong believer in a single payer market and Carl Hanson, former head of the Electricity Authority argues against this here.
At Total Utilities, we track the competitiveness of contestable costs and been doing so for nearly 20 years. While this data is representative of our customer base (which is made up of small and large commercial and industrial customers and does not include residential customers) we...
Read more
Mercury’s pioneering direct grid-connected battery: it’s large and in-charge
During the recent two-day EMANZ Conference that I attended in Auckland with our Energy Manager, Tânia Coelho, I was struck by the surge of genuine enthusiasm for and commitment to renewable energy from the diverse group of Energy Managers and others who attended.
In this regard, our country is in the fortunate position that 85% of our electricity supply already comes from renewable energy, mainly hydro-electricity, geothermal and wind-generation based.
Successive National and Labour Coalition Governments have made a strong and binding commitment to New Zealand meeting its global carbon...
Read more
Plenty of power for electric cars in NZ
In this Part III examining whether electric vehicles (EVs) are a fad or really are the future, we consider the implications for the supply of electricity and more.
What happens when New Zealand stops importing oil and substitutes it with hydro, geothermal, solar and wind energy to make our cars and trucks work?
To start with, New Zealand would move from a current account deficit to a budget surplus. That’s good news all round. Save money on oil, save the planet, sleep easy at night.
Except…
There are 3.9 million registered cars and trucks in New Zealand. They consume $11.8...
Read more
Electric Vehicles – Future or Fad?
True story. An employee took the flash new company Electric Vehicle (EV) up North on a sales trip. On the way home, they realised that the battery charge was running out so stopped in a small town to find a charging point. There was, inevitably, no charging station for electric vehicles so they rang the tow company and got a ride home alongside a towie with bad breath and even worse body odour. Back at work, the boss pointed out the switch that turned the hybrid vehicle back to petrol power.
My point? Electric Vehicles (EV’s) are still a bit of a mystery both to their users...
Read more
Reviewing the Emissions Trading Scheme
A Brief History of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in New Zealand
In 2008, the New Zealand Government introduced an emissions trading scheme (ETS) for greenhouse gases. It required upstream energy suppliers, the users of imported fossil fuels, and industries with CO2 process emissions, to surrender a New Zealand Emissions Unit, for every tonne of greenhouse gas (GHG) that would be subsequently be emitted. Upstream suppliers pass on the costs of these emission units to downstream users.
The Government was aware that energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries would suffer...
Read more
Tiwai renewal for greater flexibility and market stability
The news announced this morning ends the worst kept secret of the electricity industry in New Zealand. Months of speculation has been concluded with this morning's announcement that NZAS will continue to operate Tiwai Point with extra hedge contracts being provided by Contact Energy and Genesis Energy. The deal will provide NZAS with greater certainty if Meridain's hydro lake storage drops to low levels during summer periods in the future. This will no doubt have a flow on effect to the commercial market as there is now certainty regarding the future of Manpouri and the ongoing viability of...
Read more
Commerce Commission Rules on Unfair Terms
The recent Commerce Commission ‘ruling’ on Unfair Contract Terms for utilities is great news for businesses.
Total Utilities has been negotiating utility agreements since 1999 and a recurring bugbear for us in the past 16 years has been the use of automatic contract roll-over and right of renewal/price-matching provisions by some suppliers to constrain effective competition.
Put bluntly, these clauses have been used as a ‘hospital pass’ by the suppliers in question to avoid a level competitor playing field – especially in the waste services/recyclables and natural gas...
Read more
Cutting electricity costs – which way to pay?
Coping with the worst recession in living memory has forced businesses to leave no stone unturned in the quest to improve their bottom line. Electricity is one cost that impacts on everyone and businesses impacted by the deregulated NZ energy markets fall into two basic categories:
1. Non-time of Use customers
Businesses with energy usage per ICP (Installation Connection Point) below approximately 200000 kWh per year (the actual figure varies dependent on the local lines company) are likely to be supplied on a non-time of use basis. These sites will have a standard non-TOU meter...
Read more