KEY POINTS:
A local lobby group says the Electricity Commission's decision to give the green light to the controversial $824 million electricity pylon project through the Waikato is illegal and should be overturned.
New Era Energy says Auckland's security of electricity supply will be compromised by construction of one 400kV line because the city will be too dependent on it.
Along with Waipa District Council, landowners are readying themselves to challenge the commission's decision by way of a judicial review.
Top environmental lawyer Paul Cavanagh QC is understood to be reviewing some of the documents related to the January decision.
A Herald source said if legal advice found a judicial review was feasible, lawyers would challenge the commission's decision, and an injunction could be sought to halt the next stage of Transpower's plan.
That stage is to gain resource consent through a Board of Inquiry, which in August cabinet minister Pete Hodgson directed should be set up to fast-track the consent process.
The Board of Inquiry usurps the process that normally takes place at local authority level, which in this case would have involved nine separate regional or district councils.
The process has already begun. According to the Ministry for the Environment, about 1200 public submissions to the board were received by the October 5 deadline date.
Waipa District Council mayor Alan Livingston said while his council was seeking to challenge the decision through a judicial review, he doubted its ability to postpone the Board of Inquiry process.
Kate Brennan, a resident of Te Miro near Cambridge, has received 3250 documents under the Official Information Act over the past two weeks, forking out $3296 of her own money to pay for them.
She believed critical figures had been manipulated to ensure Transpower's proposals passed the fundamental Grid Investment Test (GIT).
Permission has always hinged on the Electricity Commission giving a pass mark to the test.
Mrs Brennan said the Electricty Commission board had gone against its own staff's advice.
One of the most startling findings, referred to in the documents, was the view of commission staff that the proposed 400kV line would expose Auckland to security of supply risks, similar to ones that exist today.
"The lights could go out. The commission has ignored its own staff's advice which outlines risks associated with a double circuit failure," Mrs Brennan said.
Lightning strikes or unusually high winds, or terrorism and flight accidents, could cause continued blackouts to Auckland. "It's called a low-probability, high impact event. So much of the North Island's power will be carried on the line that when it goes down, it goes down. It can't cascade down to other lines."
In a confidential draft economic analysis by commission staff, dated 25 January - a week before the decision was released - reservations about the 400kV line were expressed.
Input assumptions were incorrect or subjective, staff said.
The GIT was remodelled and as a result concern was raised about the "lower reliability of the [pylon] proposal compared to the 220kV alternative".
Based on this it was unclear whether the proposal would pass the test, staff said.
Doubts were also raised about reliability standards and whether the plans were considered good industry practice.
In a revised economic analysis by the commission, dated 23 February, staff said a "double circuit forced outage" on the 400kV line would mean the state of the electricity system would be similar to the present.
Greater reliability would exist if a new 220kV line was built.
Mrs Brennan and her husband Geoff Copstick have laid a complaint with the Electricity Ombudsman.
Another revelation from the documents was the fact the commission has used figures that assumed 380MW of power will be built in, or near, Auckland by the year 2042.
This was below Transpower's own assumptions, which said that 438MW of new power generation was likely by 2042.
Other research, the "2007 Statement of Opportunities", showed that 1325MW of generation was expected by that date.
While the lower generation figures improved the case for the new pylons, the higher ones would have forced the commission's hand to fail the GIT.
"It's illegal, the rules required them to use the most likely market demand scenarios," Mrs Brennan said.
An alternative to Transpower's proposal was discarded by the commission when its cost was projected to be $10 million more than the 400kV line (the alternative to the giant pylons was construction of a new 220kV line).
However, the cost difference was even closer if the Electricity Commission board had preferred independent figures rather than Transpower's data.
After pressure from lobbyists, the commission agreed to run an independent consultant's (Parsons Brinckerhoff Associates) figures through capital cost modelling, which showed a $200,000 difference between the 400kV line and its alternative.
Electricity Commission chairman Peter Harris could not be reached for comment yesterday.
But Transpower spokeswoman Rebecca Wilson said the grid operator stood by its proposal and "the integrity of the process".
"The figures were thoroughly checked and analysed by the Electricity Commission," she said.
She declined to comment on the allegation that the board of the Electricity Commission appeared to have gone against staff advice.
