Dark days of '92 loom for man in the hot seat

By CHRIS DANIELS consumer reporter

It wasn't so long ago that New Zealand was coping with low lakes and cold showers, all waiting for snow to melt and spring to arrive.

It was the 1992 power crisis, when street lighting was turned off between 11.30 pm and 5.45 am in the Coromandel and parts of the Waikato.

In other parts of New Zealand, electricity for hot-water heating was cut for up to 18 hours a day and there was a shortage of gas heaters for sale.

The Government even sent a letter to television stations asking them to cut transmission hours in an effort to save power.

TVNZ eventually brought forward its nightly close-down time by an hour or so.



During the 1992 crisis, Prime Minister Jim Bolger criticised senior executives at Electricorp for failing to plan for the low lake levels.

But an inquiry largely cleared the SOE of any wrongdoing, saying the power rationing was caused by a lack of rain.

Electricorp was later split into four companies - Genesis, Meridian, Mighty River Power (all still state owned) and Contact, which is now in private hands.

One man with an growing sense of deja vu is Wellington consultant Kieran Devine, former fuel resource manager for Electricorp.

Mr Devine was called before a prime ministerial inquiry in November 1992 to explain why power needed to be rationed and why there had been a crisis.

"With hindsight, we didn't need voluntary savings from the public at all," he told the inquiry.

Explaining this yesterday, Mr Devine said he had not meant people were duped into making voluntary savings.

Without their help, Lake Pukaki would have "been down to its last bucket of water".

It turned out that rain came at just the right time, said Mr Devine, and there had been no way of knowing that would happen.

"I commend everybody that's working on it now for getting out with the message early.

Despite all the criticism about the current market, it did flag fairly early on that there was an issue coming."

It was hard to say whether the voluntary savings message was being received in the same way now as it was in 1992, he said.

"In '92 it was essential for the management of it.

"I am at home telling my kids to count to 80 in the shower rather than 100 because I appreciate the value of it in managing the risk."

Feature: Electricity

Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority