Energy Minister Megan Woods says "commercial decisions" made by New Zealand's power companies were to blame for last night's power shortages.
As temperatures plunged across the country and Kiwis reached for their heaters and hot water bottles, tempers flared in Parliament over the power outages that plunged thousands into darkness on Monday night.
Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods turned up the heat on power companies for the outages while defending the Government's decision to ban offshore oil and gas exploration.
Woods also wanted answers to more difficult questions like whether the electricity market would function properly in the future and whether the big gentailers had turned off generation to maximise their profits.
Woods herself appeared unconvinced by power companies' excuses for the outages saying the incident "prompted further questions on whether the system is fit for purpose".
Woods told Parliament that the "market failed" to deliver "security of supply" on Monday night.
The country had enough physical generation capacity for all the power it needed, but "commercial decisions" meant that generation wasn't turned on, she said.
She would not defend the generators against accusations they had made the commercial decision to cut generation capacity to boost profits, saying that was a question for them.
Energy Minister Megan Woods is outraged at power outages. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
Woods said she would also seek assurances the incentives in the electricity market would continue to mean there was enough generation.
"I will be asking further questions about why that decision was taken," Wood said.
Gentailer Genesis Energy and network operator Transpower came under the most criticism.
Genesis said it was unable to deliver as much generation as hoped for because wind had stirred up weeds in the lake feeding one of its hydro projects
It was also not using enough wind power because the wind dropped around its wind farm meaning less power could be generated there.
Genesis said that by that time it was too late to fire up one of its coal generators to plug the gap.
Illustration / Rod Emmerson
Genesis chief executive Marc England said it was "grossly unfair" of Woods to single out Genesis, and accused her of scapegoating the company.
"It was not a commercial decision, it was an operational decision," England told RNZ, saying that Genesis had lost more than $1 million on Monday.
England said the fault lay with Transpower, and Woods as minister.
"Transpower as a company has the overall visibility of the market and what's going on and ministers are ultimately accountable for energy security as a whole," he said.
England will see Woods on Wednesday for a prearranged meeting.
Transpower copped blame for overestimating the amount of power distributors needed to shed from their networks, meaning too much ended up being switched off.
A timeline presented by Woods to Parliament showed Transpower first warned the electricity market it was forecasting a deficit of generation at 6.43 am on Monday.
Despite multiple warnings throughout the day, companies failed to find additional capacity, so at 6.40 pm, Transpower urgently warned network companies to shed some load from the system.
Half an hour later, Transpower issued a "grid emergency notice" saying there was not enough generation to meet demand.
Genesis says Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods has made it a scapegoat for the outages. Photo / Michael Craig
Opposition leader Judith Collins said the outages could be put down to the Government's decision to ban offshore oil and gas exploration, and blamed Woods.
"She knows the issue. She was their energy and resources spokesperson in 2017, she fully understands the issue and she has stood by while this very important area of natural gas has been destroyed as an industry," she said.
Collins said Woods should be sacked. "She's hopeless," Collins said.
Woods said the offshore oil and gas exploration ban made no difference to the outages, noting that there was enough capacity in the system, it just was not turned on.
The Green Party defended the ban, noting that the shortages on Monday night coincided with the release of a United Nations climate change report, warning of the catastrophic effects of climate change.
Co-leader James Shaw said it was a "shame" the country had not invested in a more distributed and robust grid earlier.
Woods suggested further change was to come. On Tuesday morning she convened a meeting of senior officials from Transpower, the Electricity Authority (EA), and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to get assurances there would continue to be enough supply.
She has also been receiving analysis from the EA, which regulates the electricity sector about the supply issues that have plagued the sector this year.
