Transpower chairman Keith Turner. Photo / Dean Purcell
Transpower chair Keith Turner says his place in the New Year’s honour list is as much a recognition of the electricity sector’s dedication as it is a reflection of his 55 years in the sector.
Turner has been made a companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit “for services to the electricity industry”.
It is a remarkable career spanning roles in almost every part of the sector.
“That’s a fair stretch, and in an industry that is so critical to modern society. You know, I sort of feel this is an acknowledgement to the industry, that wide bunch of talented people I’ve worked with as well,” Turner said.
“It’s an industry that’s deeply committed to societal benefit. I’ve found, even from day one, working in what was a public service, that people who went into electricity had a reason for working in it other than just being paid or working for the public service.
“It was something about providing a fundamental of modern society and the critical things for people to live by. When it doesn’t perform, everybody notices. When it does perform, nobody notices.”
Transient stability
From engineer to planner, rule setter and regulator to running the country’s largest generation company to now chairing the state-owned enterprise running the transmission network, Turner’s career also involved decades of change from a centralised government energy department with years of reforms moving to corporatisation through to the market structure in place now.
Turner trained as an engineer, receiving his PhD in 1980 on the topic of Transient Stability Analysis of Integrated AC and DC Power.
“It is absolutely relevant today, believe it or not; not many PhDs survive that long,” Turner said.
However, his career in engineering did not last long.
“By the early 1980s, I was moved into power systems planning, and that was a shift from engineering to economics and environmental consenting.”
Between 1983 and 1998, he held various positions with DesignPower and the former New Zealand Electricity Department.
In 1987, the Electricity Corporation of New Zealand (ECNZ) was set up as a state-owned enterprise that owned and operated the generation and transmission assets of the Ministry of Energy.
Looking back, Turner said: “Corporatisation was a big highlight, it was a massive transformation from public service. And it came at a time for me when the way the public service worked was starting to stretch my tolerance.
“I was quite a commercially oriented animal. I discovered I couldn’t use the word animal, but quite a commercially oriented person.”
Turner was the chief operating officer of ECNZ as the sector began the period of major reform, which he had a major hand in.
ECNZ was then split apart, and Transpower was set up to run the transmission network as a subsidiary of ECNZ, which became solely a generator. Turner served as a member of the Transpower Establishment Board, which later turned into a stand-alone SOE.
He was also a founding director of M-Co (an early regulator) and a member of the Market Surveillance Committee as the sector moved towards the market structure.
Turner was also a part of the next big shift in the sector as the decision was made in 1997 to privatise part of the Government’s generating portfolio, with him as a member of the Contact Energy Establishment Team.
He was also a senior executive and then chief executive of SOE Meridian Energy.
During that time, Turner took Transpower to court over how it was allocating costs to Meridian to get its power north. It was a move that raised eyebrows from the Prime Minister down, who did not like the optics of two state agencies slugging it out in the courts.
In one of those twists of fate, Turner went on to chair Transpower in 2022, a position he holds now and which the 74-year-old will relinquish only in 2025 as he seeks semi-retirement.
During that time, Meridian also made a highly successful foray into the Australian market, purchasing rundown and poorly run hydro generation, sprucing it up and selling it back.
Today, he still rejects rumours that then Finance Minister Michael Cullen made Meridian sell the Australian assets and claimed the money back as a special dividend.
“It was, I think, the extraordinary success of a board and management getting real clarity around strategy and high-quality execution of strategy. You know, the Australian initiative is much more than just coming home with a big cheque.”
Meridian was also at the forefront of developing NZ’s wind farm capacity but did not have the same success in increasing the country’s hydro capacity.
One example was Project Aqua, a plan to build a series of stations running on canals based on the lower Waitaki River.
There were protests and objections, but Turner said the killer was the uncertainty around water rights.
“I had just been overseas to the US to raise $400 million of private placement money. Everyone who invested asked me, How long do your consents run? And the Waitaki water allocation board raised doubt about consents, and I couldn’t pursue Aqua.”
Turner is doing the BusinessDesk interview from his study in Tauranga, where he has some original cartoons covering his career.
One is by New Zealand Herald cartoonist Rod Emmerson with a tombstone saying “RIP Project Aqua” and a couple of people with a Meridian bag saying, “Well, okay, it wasn’t voluntary euthanasia, but it still went with dignity.”
Another is a Tom Scott original, picturing the front steps of the old Parliament building, with some people from Meridian coming out with a cable with a three-pin plug at the end.
“The Meridian guys are saying, ‘Trust me, it’s one gigantic wind farm in there. So we’re plugging it in’,” Turner laughed.
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