Act promises to put onus on lines companies to justify consumer charges

The Act Party is promising to clamp down on lines companies abusing their “market power” to prevent customers getting better deals and to increase competition at different points in the system to ultimately lower power bills for New Zealanders. 

If elected, the party has promised to require lines companies to prove they are providing value to consumers before increasing costs to consumers. 

It is also vowing to give New Zealanders the right to sell excess power they generate. 

In a just-released policy document, the party said breaking up power companies, as proposed by New Zealand First for example, was not the antidote to high power bills. 

“The answer to high electricity prices is more generation, more investment and more competition - not political restructuring that fails to address the underlying shortage. 

“Breaking companies apart does not create another megawatt of generation, another gas molecule or another transmission line, but would almost certainly shatter the confidence of anyone seeking to invest in growing capacity.” 

The party’s energy policy includes: 

• Strengthening enforcement where electricity companies misuse market power to block a better deal for consumers. “Competition law and electricity regulation should protect open access to markets and infrastructure ... the answer to high electricity prices is more generation, more investment and more competition.” 
• New Zealanders could sell the power they make - such as through solar panels and batteries. Households would be able to choose their buyer and export more power when there was capacity in the network. 
• Private investment: Act would also allow private investors to build, own and operate new transmission connected to the national grid, subject to meeting common technical and reliability standards. 
• Qualified providers would be able to compete to deliver customer-funded connection work 
• Ramp up competition: Act says it would batteries and smarter grid technologies compete with “expensive new lines” so that consumers were not “charged for gold-plating when a cheaper solution would do.” 

Act spokesperson for Energy and Resources Simon Court said the response to high power bills was not to blame “successful companies” by breaking them up or by vows to “pull the electricity market apart.” 

“We’ve seen that before with the oil and gas ban. We need to make it easier for people to invest, generate more electricity, build the networks needed to move it, and compete for customers. That is how New Zealand gets abundant electricity and lower costs. 

“Affordable electricity comes from welcoming investment and making it easier to produce and move more energy around the country,” Court said. 

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.