6 December 2021  

The Authority has issued a strong warning letter to Transpower as the grid owner and approved a settlement agreement between Transpower New Zealand Limited and Contact Energy Limited following a self-reported breach by the grid owner.

The grid owner breached clause 4(4)(a) of Technical Code A, Schedule 8.3 of the Electricity Industry Participation Code 2010 during planned circuit breaker replacement work. 

The settlement includes the grid owner reviewing and updating procedures, producing detailed test plans for interlocking circuits and communicating with connecting parties.

16 June 2021

The Authority has approved a settlement between Transpower New Zealand Limited, as the grid owner and as the system operator, Haast Energy Trading Limited and Mercury NZ Limited concerning a self-reported breach of clause 3.2.3 of the Outage Protocol by the grid owner.

The settlement includes the grid owner ensuring it provides equal access to outage planning information in future.

31 May 2019

The following settlement was reached between Transpower New Zealand Limited, as the grid owner and as the system operator, and Mainpower New Zealand Limited, concerning self-reported breaches of clause 4(4)(a)(ii) of Technical Code A of Schedule 8.3.

The breaches concerned three separate events at Bombay, Southbrook and Invercargill GXPs when the grid owner failed to ensure it designed, commissioned, maintained, and applied its protection systems so the settings would be selective when operating, so that the minimum amount of assets was disconnected.

13 February 2019

The following settlement was reached between Transpower New Zealand Limited, as the grid owner and as the system operator, and Meridian Energy Limited concerning a self-reported breach of the Code by the grid owner. The breach persisted from 12 August 2017 to 3 April 2018, when the grid owner failed to ensure it operated the HVDC within the limits of the asset capability statement that it had provided to the system operator.

4 December 2018

The following settlement agreement was reached by Nova Energy Limited and Transpower New Zealand Limited as the system operator concerning self-reported breaches by Nova Energy. The breaches concerned Nova Energy changing price instead of offer quantity to reflect unavailability of its McKee generation plant on 23 April 2018.

30 August 2017

The Authority approved an amendment to a settlement agreement (approved by the Authority on 15 October 2015) between The Power Company Limited, Electricity Invercargill Limited, Meridian Energy Limited, Powershop New Zealand Limited and the Electricity Authority in its role of the market administrator concerning breaches by The Power Company Limited and Electricity Invercargill Limited.

The original settlement agreement required The Power Company and Electricity Invercargill as metering equipment providers (MEPs) to donate the charged lease fee for each uncertified metering installation after 1 September 2016 to a charity agreed with the Authority. For various reasons there were delays in certifying the meters. Consequently the lease fees that the two MEPs accrued from uncertified meters was substantial.

The parties to the settlement agreed that payment of $100,000 to the Southland Warm Homes Trust would be a fair amount to settle the matter.

The Authority considered the intention of the settlement agreement was to incentivise the two MEPs to speed up the recertification process and not be overly punitive. The Authority also considered the payment was sufficient for the non- compliance.

27 June 2017

The following settlement agreement was reached by MainPower New Zealand Limited, Transpower New Zealand Limited as the grid owner and Transpower New Zealand Limited as the system operator concerning alleged breaches by MainPower and the grid owner. MainPower and the grid owner failed to coordinate protection settings for a new 66 kV feeder commissioned at the Southbrook substation providing supply to MainPower. When a fault occurred, the feeder's protection settings caused an unnecessary loss of supply.

28 October 2016

The following settlement agreement was reached between Alpine Energy Limited and the Electricity Authority concerning breaches of Part 6 of the Code alleged against Alpine by an installer of distributed generation (a non-participant). Regulation 18(b)(ii) of the Electricity Industry (Enforcement) Regulations 2010 requires the Authority to stand in for a non-participant as a party to an investigation and any settlement agreement that arises from it.

15 October 2015

The following settlement agreement was reached by The Power Company Limited, Electricity Invercargill Limited, Meridian Energy Limited, Powershop New Zealand Limited and the Electricity Authority in its role of the market administrator concerning alleged breaches by The Power Company Limited and Electricity Invercargill Limited. The Power Company Limited and Electricity Invercargill Limited failed to have all their interim certified metering installations certified by 1 April 2015.

15 October 2015

The following settlement agreement was reached by Contact Energy Limited, Meridian Energy Limited and Powershop New Zealand Limited concerning alleged breaches by Contact Energy. Contact Energy failed to have all its interim certified metering installations certified by 1 April 2015.

15 October 2015

The following settlement agreement was reached by Transpower New Zealand Limited as the system operator, Meridian Energy Limited and Contact Energy Limited concerning alleged breaches by the system operator. The system operator incorrectly modelled the contingent event risk associated with a planned HVDC harmonic filter outage.

15 October 2015

The following settlement agreement was reached by Alpine Energy Limited, Meridian Energy Limited and the Authority as the market administrator concerning alleged breaches by Alpine Energy. Alpine failed to have all its interim certified metering installations certified by 1 April 2015.

18 August 2015

The following settlement agreement was reached by Transpower New Zealand Limited as the system operator , Meridian Energy Limited and Contact Energy Limited concerning alleged breaches by the system operator. The system operator incorrectly modelled reserve requirements on three occasion.

26 June 2015

The following settlement agreement was reached by Transpower New Zealand Limited as the grid owner and Transpower New Zealand Limited as the system operator concerning alleged breaches by the grid owner. The grid owner did not ensure a circuit breaker at its Stoke substation was capable of operating within the limits of its asset capability statement

26 June 2015

The following settlement agreement was reached by Transpower New Zealand Limited as the grid owner, Transpower New Zealand Limited as the system operator and Genesis Energy Limited concerning alleged breaches by the grid owner. The grid owner discovered that it does not have compliant duplicate 220 kV main protection systems in place for its cable connection to Huntly Unit 5.

26 June 2015

The following settlement agreement was reached by Transpower New Zealand Limited as the grid owner and Transpower New Zealand Limited as the system operator concerning an alleged breach by the grid owner. The grid owner did not ensure a transformer at its Fernhill substation was capable of being operated within the limits stated in its asset capability statement.

26 February 2015

The following settlement agreement was reached by Vector, Transpower New Zealand Limited as the grid owner, Transpower New Zealand Limited as the system operator and Genesis Energy concerning alleged breaches by Vector and the grid owner. Vector and the grid owner failed to coordinate protection settings at Albany, causing a loss of supply.

19 December 2014

The following settlement agreement was reached by Meridian Energy, Transpower New Zealand Limited as the system operator and Genesis Energy concerning a breach by Meridian Energy. Meridian, during a grid emergency, reduced its instantaneous reserve offer without having a bona fide physical reason to do so.

21 August 2014

The following settlement agreement was reached by Contact Energy and Transpower New Zealand Limited as the system operator concerning Contact’s failure to deliver reserves and energy in an under-frequency event.

27 June 2014

The following settlement agreement was reached by Transpower New Zealand Limited as the system operator and Meridian Energy Limited. The investigation concerned the system operator’s failure to use information from Meridian Energy Limited as an ancillary service agent about instantaneous reserves procured under the procurement plan in preparing the price-responsive and non-response schedules.

22 May 2014

The following settlement agreement was reached by Mighty River Power, Transpower as the system operator, and Genesis Energy concerning Mighty River Power’s failure to comply with a dispatch instruction while operating under a block security constraint.

21 May 2013

The following settlement agreement was reached by Southpark Utilities Limited and Energy Clearing House Limited as the clearing manager concerning Southpark’s failure to pay the clearing manager the amount of its invoice in cleared funds by 1400 hours on 20 November 2012.

22 November 2012

The following settlement agreement was reached by Carter Holt Harvey Pulp and Paper Limited (CHH), Transpower New Zealand Limited as the system operator and TrustPower Limited concerning Carter Holt Harvey’s failure on 28 March 2012 to comply with dispatch instructions for its Kinleith power plant and failure to submit a revised offer reflecting the plant's ability to generate.

9 February 2012

9 February 2012
The following settlement agreement was reached by Pulse Utilities New Zealand Limited (Pulse Utilities), NZX Limited as Reconciliation Manager, Simply Energy Limited and TrustPower Limited concerning Pulse Utilities failure on 17 March 2011 and 18 May 2011 to take all practicable steps to ensure the information provided to the Reconciliation Manager was complete and accurate.

19 October 2011

The following settlement agreement was reached by Winstone Pulp International, the System Operator and Meridian Energy concerning Winstone Pulp International's failure to immediately submit revised bids for energy purchases and revised offers for instantaneous reserves. Energy bids were required to be submitted immediately when the ability to purchase the quantity bid changed by more than the levels specified in the code. Offers for instantaneous reserves were required to be submitted immediately when the quantities in the reserve offers no longer represented a reasonable estimate of the quantity of instantaneous reserve available.

The following settlement agreement was reached by Contact Energy, the System Operator, Meridian Energy, Genesis Power, and TrustPower concerning Contact's failure to immediately notify the System Operator of a bona fide physical reason preventing compliance with a dispatch instruction for the Otahuhu Power Station.

The following settlement agreement was reached by the Clearing Manager, Bay of Plenty Energy, Contact Energy, Genesis Power, King Country Energy, Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, Simply Energy, TODD Energy, TrustPower, and WEL Networks, concerning the Clearing Manager's failure to pay generators and other market participants on a pro rata basis by 16:30 on 20 August 2010.

8 March 2011

The following settlement agreement was reached by Mighty River Power, Genesis Power, the System Operator and Meridian Energy concerning Mighty River Power's failure to comply with the commissioning plan for the Nga Awa Purua geothermal plant.

For older investigations see our archive.

Archive – Compliance – Investigations closed – settlement reached