Auckland Business Chamber chief executive Simon Bridges says energy in New Zealand should be a national advantage. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Auckland Business Chamber chief executive Simon Bridges is calling for greater leadership to help stabilise energy prices.
Alongside a group of business leaders, Bridges, has launched a plan to help fix the country's energy crisis.
Energy prices soared last winter, with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon going as far as calling it an security crisis".
Last year's energy shortage saw multiple mills shut down and hundreds of job loses.
The energy crisis has prompted a coalition of energy leaders to develop a series of policy actions to address the sector crisis.
The group, led by the Auckland Business Chamber, is launching a 10-point Energy Action Plan that aims to stabilise energy prices, boost competition, and ensure reliable supply.
"Energy in New Zealand should be a national advantage, it should be a critical enabler of growth. There's no reason actually why we shouldn't be a super power in energy, but, at the moment, I think we are the opposite of that," Bridges told Morning Report.
The Energy Action Plan includes establishing a single energy regulator, ensuring sufficient back-up energy supply is in place, developing a long term national energy strategy and secure bi-partisan party support for the energy programme.
Bridges said there was a conflict of interest for providers that were both generators and retailers. He said it's time for the Government to run a ruler over the so-called gentailer model, something that both the OECD and Commerce Commission have called for.
"Everyone in the sector, except the gentailers, really, is there on this and I think it has to be looked at," he said.
Bridges said the gentailers do as a little as possible to keep the status quo and maximise their profits, and while he isn't knocking that, calling it "rational behaviour", he said it does require the government running the ruler over them "sooner then later".
He is calling for a "one stop shop" for energy regulation.
"If you look at the sector right now, there is a bit of a leadership vacuum... The idea of having a one stop shop, if you like, as a regulator that is in control [and] that does have accountability that we all look to that can take both a short and long term view is pretty compelling," he said.
"... It's about just having a group of people, experts, advising the minister in a stronger way then perhaps is the case today."
The action plan wants a single energy regulator to streamline administration of the sector, consolidating accountabilities and statutory duties of the three existing regulators into one specialised energy agency.
The group said it will engage closely with decision-markers on the plan.
The Energy Action plan includes:
- Establishing a single energy regulator
- Ensuring sufficient back-up energy supply is in place
- Develop a long term national energy strategy
- Secure bi-partisan party support for the energy programme
- Ensure the generator-retailer model does not stifle competition
- Develop new demand response tools
- Facilitate the development of long term contracts
- Formulate a blueprint for New Zealand's geothermal potential
- Remove "red-tape" around distribution
- Create a "warrant of fitness" for the energy sector to independently review institutional arrangements and measure performance.
The group is calling for work on these actions to begin immediately and anticipates that all could be implement within 18 months.
