Aucklanders can vote for who runs the Entrust board, and therefore decides what happens with our power network. Photo / File
364,000 Auckland households and businesses can vote this month for the trust that owns the power lines.
But, what does that mean and how will voting affect the future of Auckland’s electricity network?
Entrust owns 75.1% of Vector Limited, an investment worth $2.76 billion. It acts on behalf of the Auckland community and has done so since 1993.
As such, eligible electricity account holders in the Entrust District of central, east, and south Auckland get annual dividend payments.
The latest of $350 was paid on September 18.
Entrust is governed by five trustees elected every three years by eligible electricity consumers by postal voting, using the First Past the Post (FPP) voting method.
In the last election, the turnout was only 9.5% of eligible voters, according to Greater Auckland.
Herald senior writer Simon Wilson told The Front Page six years ago, turnout was a low 17%.
“Entrust has been paying this dividend to the billpayers for a long time now. In 2006, which is when the current structure was established, the dividend was $310.
“Every year thereafter for the next six years, it fell in real terms. Then it grew for a little bit, but from 2018, it’s been falling and falling.
“If you look at the effect of inflation, if you use the Reserve Bank’s calculator and put $310 in 2006 into the calculator and see what it should be worth now, they should be paying us $483, not $350,” Wilson said.
There’s also a question of what more the trust could be doing to better future-proof Auckland’s electricity network.
“If we had a rollout of solar we would have made a significant difference to security supply and lowering emissions.
“We’ve had some poor experiences [with solar] in the past. Some of the equipment wasn’t very reliable. Batteries were expensive and the memory of all that kind of thing lingers.
“Australia has around about 35% of its rooftops now have solar panels on them, many with batteries. Melbourne has 35% of its roofs with solar on them, and that’s because they have incentivised people to buy the equipment, or they have made it possible for people to lease it, or the power companies themselves have retained ownership and given people the use of it,” Wilson said.
He said it could change the power game in New Zealand.
“It could mean that you might pay as little as a sixth of your current power bill, 34 cents a kilowatt per hour at the moment, down to 6 cents a kilowatt hour. If you were paying off the loan to get the equipment, it might be 12 cents an hour.
“That’s phenomenally different from what we currently have.”
Communities and Residents (C&R) have dominated control of the trust for the past 30 years.
More for you, Better for Auckland is also seeking to be elected this year, aiming to bring down power bills.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about the Entrust election, who’s involved and how it could affect your future.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Lindsay McKenzie starts in the role today, commuting between Nelson and Wellington.