Government to unveil backup generation plan

The Government will announce on Tuesday electricity market changes to ensure stand-by generation for dry years, Prime Minister Helen Clark said last night.

The Prime Minister said she was "outraged" by the power shortage, and had been pushing to have it fixed since the second half of last year.

"I put [Finance Minister] Michael Cullen on the case, and we are starting to get some real movement, so that for the future we should have a system in place which ensures there is stand-by generation," she said.

"Unfortunately, the present market model does not encourage the companies to keep that stand-by generation."

She thought public co-operation would increase as the savings campaign adverts became more explicit about what needed to be done.

"We will get through it, but for the future I don't want to see New Zealand in this position again," she said.

"It has to be sorted out and that is why, come next Tuesday, there will be a major announcement from [Energy Minister] Pete Hodgson and Michael Cullen."

"The bottom line is that a First World society is entitled to have enough power to fuel its industries and warm its pensioners' cottages."

- NZPA