Greenpeace is labelling the big four power companies
‘vampires’, for an expected
record payout of $1.4 billion to their shareholders.
Mercury, Contact and Genesis have already announced an
increase to their shareholder payouts in their annual
results. The final gentailer, Meridian, is expected to
confirm its increased shareholder payouts today and bring
the total to $1.4 bn.
Stats
NZ confirmed electricity prices jumped 4.9% in the June
quarter, the steepest rise in over a decade, with prices
increasing 10.4% in the year ended June. Consumer
NZ found 20% of people have had difficulty paying their
power bill in the past year – up from 18% last
year.
“Families and businesses are being slammed by
record high power bills, all so that the big four power
companies can siphon off an expected $1.4 billion for their
shareholders,” says Greenpeace Aotearoa campaigner Gen
Toop
“This is corporate blood-sucking at its most
brutal”.
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“Instead of re-investing their revenue into
building more clean, cheap renewables that would bring power
bills down, these corporate vampires are bleeding households
and the economy dry to fund their record shareholder payout.
And the Government is just letting them do it.”
This
year Contact Energy increased its total payout to $384
million, Mercury paid $202 million despite its profits
collapsing to just $1m, and Genesis Energy handed out $157
million, even as it hiked household bills by 7.6% and
corporate bills by 10.6%.
Meridian is expected to
maintain record payouts after funnelling $462 million to
shareholders last year. In 2024, the
four firms paid out just over $1.3b in dividends to
shareholders. They invested less than that, about $1b, in
capital expenditure in new generation during that
year.
“Power is an essential service and New
Zealanders’ health and wellbeing depends on them being
able to afford to warm and power their homes. Essential
services, like affordable power, should always come before
shareholder profits,” says Toop.
“These companies have
been deliberately underinvesting in renewables so that they
can keep dirty fossil fuels in the system because it pushes
power prices up,” says Toop. “Households and the climate pay
the price so that wealthy shareholders can laugh their way
to the bank.”
Greenpeace is calling for urgent reform
of the electricity sector. They say the Government should
provide interest-free loans for household solar and consider
intervening to cap the shareholder returns of the gentailers
until they have sufficiently reinvested profit into new
renewable
generation.
