Graeme Weston

Powerful forces are keeping New Zealanders’ electricity bills higher than they need to be. In Wellington, the conversation has tilted toward more gas (including an LNG import terminal) as the “quick fix.” That framing — strongly backed by oil-and-gas interests — locks in expensive, imported fuel that set high prices. It also delays cheaper solutions: building wind, solar and geothermal at pace, adding batteries, rewarding flexible demand, and using Taslink to import sunshine when it’s cheapest.

Three of the big four gentailers are 51percent Crown-owned. When scarcity keeps prices high, profits and dividends rise — but households and small businesses carry the cost. That doesn’t mean anyone is doing something illegal; it means the rules and incentives aren’t aligned with the public’s interest in lower bills.

A better path:

■ Sunshine first. Over-build cheaper renewables fast, outcompeting coal and gas that set electricity prices

■ Make charges symmetric: you should be paid the same rate for exporting from a home battery or EV (V2G) as you buy it. That pulls thousands of “batteries on wheels” into the fight and cuts the expensive peak hours.

■ Site new data centres near generation (Kawerau geothermal, Matahina hydro, Edgecumbe Solar) and carry data back to Auckland over fibre optic cables on existing transmission pylons — far cheaper than over-building power lines into Auckland and passing the bill to you.

■ If we connect to Australia with an electricity cable (Taslink), we can buy their cheap afternoon sun for our evening peak — and export to them when we have over built surplus. Private capital can fund it (not government).

■ We’re paying today’s high prices because of coal and gas. Commit now to wind and solar, the two cheapest ways to make electricity. Don’t submit to more fossil-fuel lobbying.

How, ask our MP to commit to:

(1) symmetric import-export payments,

(2) plan for “grid-fibre Data Centre zones”

(3) open-access rules for a cable to Australia so competition, not scarcity, sets prices and provides a dry-hydro solution,

(4) remove government conflicts of interest by selling their 51% shares in gentailers, freeing them to make good decisions

(5) displace inefficient ICE vehicles with “batteries on wheels”.

We don’t need another decade of high bills. We need rules that pay for what helps — sunshine, flexibility, and fair competition — not imported fossil fuels.