New Zealand invests $4.6 billion in electricity grid

• 12 years ago (2012-05-29)
• David Flin

North America 1021 Renewables 776

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The New Zealand Government has announced that it will invest $4.6 billion over the next 10 years in upgrading the national electricity grid. Transpower has said that it will use the investment to ensure that the grid is able to cope with extra demands placed upon it, and to do as much as possible to guarantee security of electricity supply.

Brendan Winitana, Chairman of the Sustainable Electricity Association of New Zealand (SEANZ), said that while his organisation welcomes the investment in Transpower, there are still issues that need to be thought through, especially how the fund will be used. “Electricity supply in New Zealand still has one major challenge. It is largely centralised generation, moving power from the hydro lakes in the deep south to the rest of the country. Are there better ways, where as part of a much-needed upgrade, local electricity generated from renewable sources, such as solar and wind, are looked at and consideration given to how these might be integrated into the grid?”

He added that the investment in Transpower is as much about what the future of electricity generation will look like in the next 50 years. “If the plan is simply to make the pipes bigger to enable more electricity to be shifted between the islands, then I think we are missing the point. This is the time to plan for how distributed generation can future-proof New Zealand and provide a more effective way to deliver electricity from a variety of sources through the grid.”