After I wrote about the electricity crisis in Australia, last Thursday it happened here as Transpower declared a grid emergency. This should not have come as a surprise, as Transpower had warned last month, based on modelling, that there would be 37 days between June and August where there could be a generation shortfall. Sure enough, on the morning of 23 June, after very cold temperatures over several days, the electricity demand almost outstripped supply. Our wind farms could only deliver 29 MW from an installed capacity of 1 GW, i.e. 2.9%, leaving our thermal generators to pick up the load. One generator failed to start and one of the coal-fired Rankine units at Huntly was unable to run at full capacity, leaving New Zealand dangerously close to a blackout.
Fortunately Transpower was on top of the situation and we avoided disaster, but it does highlight just how finely balanced our energy sector is. As was pointed out in NZ Energy Weekly:
What the market really needs is the (up to) 360 MW of gas peaking plant that Nova Energy has held resource consents for since 2017 but has abandoned to meet the government’s 100 per cent renewable generation by 2030 target and Lake Onslow overhang.
In other words, we are dangerously short of gas-fired peaking generation to back up our intermittent wind and solar generation.
The fact is the government’s enthusiasm for net zero has blinded them to the risks: risks that we as consumers end up paying for needlessly. They are focusing on gross rather than net emissions as required in the Net Zero by 2050 legislation. We only have to look at what is happening in Europe and the UK to see how dangerous that is. Energy prices are unaffordable for low-income households, with the British Government considering paying them to reduce consumption, and they are going into the middle of summer. What will it be like in the depths of winter?
We cannot play fast and loose with energy policy; gas will play an important role firming our intermittent wind and solar generation. It is not an ‘either or’, it is an ‘as well’.
As I write this, another cold blast is working its way up the country, with the likelihood of more to come through to August. It is time for the Labour Government to put their ideology aside and ensure that all legs of the energy trilemma – security, affordability and sustainability – are given equal weight. Right now, too much emphasis is on sustainability, and we are all paying for it.