Govt to review electricity industry

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Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee has launched an immediate Ministerial review of the electricity sector.

Brownlee today released Terms of Reference for a review and announced that six independent experts would be appointed to a Technical Advisory Group.
“There are a number of other reports completed or underway in the electricity sector.
“The government has concerns about security of supply, the affordability of electricity, and duplication of electricity sector governance,” said Brownlee.
The six experts on the Technical Advisory Group are Brent Layton, David Russell, Lewis Evans, Stephen Franks, Toby Stevenson, and Miriam Dean. The best way to draw the threads together and make timely decisions to build public, industry and investor confidence is to proceed with a Ministerial review,” he said. The first phase would look at regulatory and governance issues, with the second addressing issues of electricity market performance.
Brownlee said there would be two phases of work in the Ministerial review.
Brownlee’s announcement comes a day after state owned Genesis Power announced price rises, effective from May 17, for 75,000 residential customers.
“It may be that the review process throws up some obvious short-term improvements that can be made and if so these will be acted on immediately,” he said. And Meridian said the previous month it would increase power bills for 180,000 customers by an average of 6. .5 percent, on top of a 6 percent increase last September.

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