Ryan Bridge: Coal keeps the lights on

We need to be a bit practical about this business of importing coal.

Yesterday Genesis, Mercury, Meridian, and Contact announced they're going to stockpile up to 600,000 tonnes of coal to keep the lights on at Huntly power station.

The deal needs Commerce Commission's approval so it doesn't look like they're colluding on price, but the idea struck a deal, which still needs Commerce Commission approval, to keep the lights on at Huntly.

Point of Order: Power without the pain of unbearable prices – how our electricity companies have been performing

The big power companies on which New Zealanders depend for energy supplies in their homes, factories and farms have had a remarkable season. But unlike their counterparts in Australia and the United Kingdom they have navigated it without inflicting the same sort of pain on their consumers in soaring prices.

An earlier post from our authoritative London writer this week on Point of Order charted the UK issues. The lessons are instructive.

Here in NZ, consumers may have complained, too, but by comparison they enjoyed plentiful supplies without the problems when they become too dependent on wind and solar power as a result of the drive to decarbonise.