The Authority has released its latest surveys of competition, reliability and efficiency (CRE) in the electricity industry. We commissioned UMR Ltd to undertake two surveys in January/February 2014, one of consumers and the other of electricity industry stakeholders, to better understand how they perceive the electricity industry.

The results show that the improving trend we observed last year is continuing this year with perceptions of competition in the electricity sector improving over most of the metrics. 

• Consumer and stakeholder surveys

This is the third year, with previous surveys undertaken in August 2011 and January/February 2013. 

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On 9 April 2014 the Compliance Committee appointed investigators to investigate the following alleged breaches:

• Self-reported breach by Contact Energy Limited and alleged breach by the system operator.

On 12 November 2013, Contact failed to comply with dispatch instructions for energy, fast instantaneous reserves and sustained instantaneous reserves during an under-frequency event. Contact’s speed governors did not respond in the manner expected due to unapproved changes made by Contact’s supplier to the governors’ settings.

• Breaches alleged of NZX Limited as the pricing manager by the Electricity Authority as the market administrator.

The pricing manager is alleged to have failed to follow the correct methodology for calculating interim prices by not weighting the information about the HVDC capacity used over TP 24 on 20 September 2013.

Further information is available at:

http://www.ea.govt.nz/code-and-compliance/compliance/current-investigations/
 

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Proposed amendments to the Information System Definition 

The Authority is consulting on proposed amendments to the Information System Definition.

• Proposed amendments to the Information System Definition

Started: 8/04/2014; Ending: 30/04/2014 5pm

More standardisation of use-of-system agreements

The Authority is consulting on more standardisation of use-of-system agreements.

• More standardisation of use-of-system agreements

Started: 8/04/2014; Ending: 20/05/2014 5pm

Efficient procurement of extended reserves

• Efficient procurement of extended reserves

Barriers to group switching and mass-market aggregation

• Barriers to group switching and mass-market aggregation 

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Information plays an important part in building market confidence and strength.

To assist interested parties in tracking market development, the Authority publishes NZ electricity hedge contracts as a standard section of its weekly Market Brief.

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