Power generators tell commission to move on pylons

Big power generators are warning the Electricity Commission not to delay Transpower's plans for a new 400kV power line through the Waikato.

Electricity Commissioner Roy Hemmingway is deciding whether to approve Transpower's plans for a $500 million line of pylons connecting south Waikato to south Auckland.

His interim decision on the 400kV proposal is due next month.

Hemmingway must decide whether suitable alternatives exist. He may decide Transpower's plan for a new line is reasonable, but that it is not needed by 2010.

His approach to working out possible alternatives has been criticised by power companies in the latest round of submissions.

Contact Energy has warned against an "either-or" approach - assuming that either the new line will be built or some combination of alternatives. It says doing both may be the best option.

Alternatives to the new line include new power stations closer to the load in Auckland, and "demand side" measures, where electricity demand can be better managed at peak times.

"Further, a number of the alternatives are highly interconnected requiring a whole 'chain' of incremental investments to go ahead," says Contact.

One alternative option was to defer building the 400kV line until 2017, but upgrading existing lines, allowing them to carry more electricity.

This upgrade had to be done by 2011, and 13 other "incremental projects" were needed by 2008, with another eight having to be finished in 2010.

Contact said it wanted clarity as to how the commission would take all this into account.

State-owned power generator and retailer Genesis Energy said it had "considerable doubts regarding the efficacy of the process being followed by the Electricity Commission, as well as the Electricity Commission's ability to implement any viable alternative projects".

"Even a brief look at the options identified in the Electricity Commission's consultation paper shows that many of them could never function as viable transmission alternatives."

Submissions to the Electricity Commission from pylon opponents have shown that any move that approves the pylons in principle, but delays any actual installation, may serve to anger landowners even more than a quick construction.

Underground In Manukau objected to any kind of two-stage process, believing this would increase uncertainty for the landowners.