Industry reps out of power board

By RICHARD BRADDELL utilities writer

All members of the electricity governance board being established to oversee the industry will be drawn from outside the industry, not just the majority required by the Government.

Establishment group chairman David Caygill yesterday outlined 600 pages of rules put up for consultation.



The board will take over three existing self-regulatory functions, and should be running early next year at the latest.

"The old diehard industry approach has been booted out the door very strongly in this process," governance working group chairman Richard Rowley said.

But he said if the industry and board disagreed, it would be a big, public standoff.

Mr Caygill said the main thrusts of the board rules were to strengthen the customer side of the industry and to embrace the operations of national grid operator Transpower, which falls outside most existing governance arrangements.

But though the board goes further than the Government policy statement on membership, the election process is less well defined.

Although the industry will not be able to vote its own representatives on to the board, it will control 50 per cent of the votes, which will be split equally between transporters (lines companies and Transpower), and generators and retailers.

Votes will be allocated to lines companies on the basis of their valuation and to generators and retailers on the basis of electricity volumes.

But voting arrangements for consumer representatives are much more murky, though a variety of consumer groups may be entitled to argue for voting rights, based on their usage.

Mr Caygill said that although groups such as the Consumers' Institute, Grey Power, Business NZ, Federated Farmers, the Major Electricity Users' Group and the Council of Trade Unions were among those who might seek voting rights, groups such as Greenpeace would be unlikely to gain representation.

The final decision would be made by a committee yet to be chosen although in the first election it was likely the NZ Electricity Market's surveillance panel would rule on eligibility.