Power tight but enough for next year

Rising wholesale power prices have prompted a conservation call from business, but Electricity Commissioner Roy Hemmingway says demand next year should still be met.

Hemmingway told a gathering of Auckland businesses this week that 2006 was always predicted to "be tight on supply".

While levels in the southern hydro lakes were low, it was still early in the year. He said the security risk for 2007 was much lower. South Island lakes are at 45 per cent of their average level.

High prices on the wholesale "spot" market have resulted in the diesel-powered Whirinaki station in Hawkes Bay being started up. It was built to provide reserve power when prices are high.

A new, large gas-fired power station at Huntly is due to come into service at the end of 2006.

The Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) yesterday urged all its members to save electricity.

While it said "all the country's available thermal electricity generation stations are operating", two major stations were shut down for maintenance.

One of the four 250 MW units at the Huntly Power Station is out of action for almost all summer, for three full months.

This four-yearly overhaul is needed so it can run at full capacity during next winter.

A Genesis spokesman said it was crucial that the Huntly station - New Zealand's largest thermal generator - was given its overhaul, since it had been running at nearly 100 per cent loads throughout the past few winters.

Contact Energy's 380 MW station at Otahuhu is also not generating power at the moment, having also been out of action for the past month for an overhaul. It is due to come back on stream before Christmas.

One of the issues in 2001 was the lack of fuel supply for the Huntly station. Genesis has since been importing coal and keeping its stockpile higher than before.

Alasdair Thompson, chief executive of the EMA (Northern), described the prices on the spot market as "uneconomic". He said power companies and the Government should "get serious" about putting new meters into homes, where prices would be charged according to the time of day.

Spot prices were more than four times higher than at the same time last year and Thompson urged all power users to conserve energy, especially at peak times.