Gas output highest on record

Gas production reached its highest level on record in the year to December, Statistics New Zealand said yesterday.

Production of gas, a leading source of thermal energy for electricity generation, rose by 5.6 per cent to 258,000 terajoules over the year - the biggest figure posted since records began in 1971.

One terajoule is a thousand billion joules of energy.

As gas production rose, hydro generation fell, as an abnormally dry winter cut flows into hydro lakes, sending electricity prices skyward and leaving thermal plants to fill the gap.

Hydro generation in the December quarter was 11.1 per cent below the figure for the same period a year earlier.

Hydro generation supplied 65 per cent of the electricity generated in the December quarter, compared with a December quarter average of 74 per cent over the past decade.

Thermal generation, on the other hand, rose 27.7 per cent in the December quarter compared with the same year-ago period.

- NZPA