Russell Palmer Political reporter
ACT is pledging to keep the gentailers whole and use market forces to curb the costs of lines management and increase solar repayment rates.
Energy spokesperson Simon Court announced the party’s electricity policy at Parliament on Friday afternoon.
It also included promises to:
- allow New Zealanders to sell power they generate, choose a buyer, and export electricity when the network has room
- allow private investors to build, own and operate new transmission connected to the national grid
- allow qualified providers to compete to deliver customer-funded connection work
- have lines maintenance compete with batteries and “smarter grid technology”
- open the electricity system to competition and investment.
Court said breaking power companies apart would not create any additional generation, gas or transmission lines but would “shatter the confidence of anyone seeking to invest in growing capacity”.
NZ First earlier this year announced it would be campaigning on breaking up the companies as part of a sector overhaul.
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“Nobody should be threatening to mess with that,” Court told RNZ.
“The system that we’ve got works, but we do need some tweaks around the margins.”
Tweaks to the Electricity Act would need some further policy work, he said, and the Commerce Commission would be empowered to oversee transmission.
He said lines management should be opened up more fully to private investment.
“Think of Northland, it’s got the potential to generate two to three times as much electricity from solar as Northland needs but they’ve got one skinny… rather unreliable connection to the grid.
“If some Northland consortiums want to get together and fund their own grid connection so they can export solar power to Auckland, they should be enabled to do that.”
There was a risk that New Zealand could “significantly overinvest” into lines, poles, transmission and local networks, he said, when batteries and demand management could avoid “enormous sunk costs that consumers will be lumped with for decades”.
ACT would also change the rules so that residential solar power could be sold back to the grid at rates set by the market.
“You should be able to get the best price for that electricity from whoever you want to sell it to, whether it’s a community network, whether it’s a local school or a business down the road.”
Contracting for lines maintenance would also be opened up to any qualified contractor.
“Private property developers tell me that for too long they have to wait for their local lines company to turn up. Often the prices are exorbitant, and they feel like they’re being held hostage or shaken down.
“Electricity will electrocute you the same… whether you’re in Invercargill or Auckland, and these people are competent.”
In 2024, a pylon in Northland collapsed after subcontractors removed the nuts from three of its four legs.
Court said lines companies would still have responsibility for safety and ensuring networks operated efficiently.
“You have different roading contractors going around the country fixing roads, you’ve got standards, they have to submit safety plans, they have to be approved by the network operator. The same thing should apply to local lines.”
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