David Farrar: Fixes for our energy shortages

We have both a short-term and long-term energy challenge. The high wholesale electricity price is because of supply shortages. The Government has announced some steps towards the short-term supply problem, being:

• Act with urgency to reverse the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration, with legislation passed by the end of 2024
• Remove regulatory barriers to the construction of critically needed facilities to import Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as a stop gap
• Ease restrictions on electricity lines companies owning generation
• Ensure access for gentailers to hydro contingency
• Improve electricity market regulation

These all seem sensible and necessary. However long-term we don’t want to be importing LNG etc. So they also announced:

• Establishing a one-stop-shop fast track approvals and permitting regime
• Amendments to the RMA to speed up resource consenting
• Stronger national direction for renewable energy
• A new regime for offshore wind
• Updated regulatory settings for electricity networks and new connections

A good example of why these changes are needed is:

“To give a practical example of how the RMA currently operates, in 2003 the Te Apiti windfarm site took 77 days to consent and had 20 conditions attached to that consent. In contrast, the Mill Creek windfarm site, completed in 2014, took 1,437 days, and had 90 conditions attached. This is unacceptable if we want to take renewables seriously.

“Even renewing consents for existing renewable power assets takes far too long. Hearings and appeals to reconsent the Clyde and Roxburgh dams, and Wairakei, ran from 2001 to 2007. It took 18 years to re-consent the Raetihi hydro dam – and when that consent was finally renewed, the number of consent conditions had increased from 4 to 136.

In just a decade the consenting time for a wind farm increased almost 2000%

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.