AUCKLAND SUB-CENTRE
OF THE
INSTITUTION OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS (IEE)
An Address delivered on behalf of
Hon Max Bradford
Minister for Enterprise and Commerce
Minister for Tertiary Education
Enterprise and Innovation Ministerial Team Leader
Breakfast Meeting
Ellerslie Convention Centre, Auckland
7.30 am,1 September 1999
Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to speak today.
Your invitation gave me broad license to speak about “some aspect of the power industry in New Zealand.” The aspect I’d
like to focus on is competition.
Electricity retail competition is flourishing
When you look at the electricity industry in New Zealand today, it’s hard to believe how far we’ve come in such a short
time.
The Electricity Industry Reform Act came into force just 14 months ago. The past 14 months have been a period of
unprecedented change for the industry.
Separating the ownership of line and supply businesses has unleashed forces of competition which had been kept in check
even after power companies were put on a more commercial footing and deregulated in the early 90s.
Before ownership separation, retail competition was a non-event.
The Energy Companies Act, which set out to commercialise the electricity industry, was introduced in 1992. Six years
after the starter’s gun went off, competition was still in the starting blocks.
The Government had to act.
This Government stands for competition in business, free of Government meddling, but our patience with the electricity
industry ran out.
In April 1998, when the shape of the reforms was announced, something like 10 percent of consumers could switch power
companies.
Now, over 60 percent of consumers have the choice and chance to get competitively lower power prices.
Now, 14 months on, competition is flourishing.
Let’s take the Ellerslie Convention Centre for example. This building - like all the other buildings in this area - is
hooked up to Vector’s network. If you go into the Consumers Institute PowerSwitch website (http://www.consumer.org.nz/),
or call PowerSwitch’s 0900 number (0900 769-370), you’ll find that consumers supplied via the Vector network have a
choice of 5 retailers. 5 retailers. And if you have a time-of-use meter, you may find one or two more knocking on your
door.
What’s more, switching from one retailer to another should be simple, and cost little or nothing.
Compare that to the situation 18 months ago. Frankly, there is no comparison.
To be fair, Auckland consumers have greater choice than most. As you’d expect in a competitive market, the greatest
competitive activity occurs around large users and large concentrations of users.
But competition does not stop at the Bombay Hills. And you don’t have to be a 200,000 kilowatt-hour a year consumer to
have a choice of supplier.
Look at Marlborough, for example, where newcomer Meridian competes with Trustpower, which bought the separated retail
business from the incumbent power company.
Marlborough is a quite different area in many respects from highly urbanised, densely populated Auckland. It has a
relatively high proportion of rural consumers, and few of the big energy users that proliferate in Penrose and other
parts of Auckland. Despite that, consumers in Marlborough have a choice of retailer.
One of the reasons for my optimism is the dynamic state of the electricity retail industry. A significant new retailer
was launched last month. Fresh Start is beginning its bid for business across Powerco’s network in Taranaki, Wanganui
and Wairarapa. Once they gain a foothold, I expect they will follow the example of other retailers and cast their net
wider.
Fresh Start will not be the last retailer to enter the market.
There are areas where head-to-head competition has not emerged, but competition is spreading and I expect that all areas
will benefit soon.
We are seeing innovative marketing strategies like Meridian’s link with Sky Television to offer discounted Sky
subscriptions. If you join up to Sky, you can opt to have your electricity supplied by Meridian anywhere in the country.
In a limited sense, then, almost everyone in the country has a choice of electricity supplier, even if Meridian is
offering to match consumers’ best deal current electricity prices.
But if we only think of competition as two or more retailers competing for consumers who are connected to a particular
network, we miss a whole dimension of competition.
Something that’s particularly pleasing for me is that the development of competition is not just about retailer push.
There are examples of consumer pull as well.
I’m talking about the trend for businesses with operations in many parts of the country to buy electricity from one
supplier. New Zealand Dairy Group, for example, has cut a deal with First Electric that is earning up to 15% savings for
over 9000 dairy farmers in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty.
The best-known of the consumer groups is “The Power Club” – a joint venture between Federated Farmers and The Energy
Group Limited to earn savings of up to 10 percent on bills.
These examples of developing retail competition are not exhaustive. Nor are they the end of the story. Remember all this
has happened since around April this year. It’s still early days in the development of a competitive electricity retail
market.
I said it would take 12 to 18 months for electricity price competition to develop fully. We are well on track to
achieving this.
The experience in other countries where retail competition has been introduced – such as the UK and Norway – is that
quite a small number of consumers actually switch retailer. Around 5 percent in the first year.
In the five months following the introduction of low-cost switching, I understand at least 25,000 New Zealand customers
switched retailer. That’s nearly 3 percent of all the consumers who have a choice of competing price plans from
competing retailers.
If that switching rate continues for 12 months, it will produce a rate for the year of over 6 percent. That means our
rate is in line with, or perhaps a little higher than in those other countries.
There are two messages you should take from this.
If you haven’t reviewed your electricity supply arrangements, you should.
And if you haven’t negotiated a better deal with your existing supplier or a new one, then you’re almost certainly
missing long-term cost-saving opportunities at home and at work.
Wholesale electricity market maturing
The wholesale market had a head-start on the retail market.
But we saw problems there with so much of the market supplied by one generator.
The split of ECNZ into three companies balances the generators’ market much better. And the sale of Contact Energy to
the private sector allows the state-owned generators to benchmark their performance against an investor-owned generator.
The sale to Edison Mission Energy – plus thousands of ordinary New Zealanders - has important spin-offs for the
Government’s wider fiscal management. That money can be invested in our future.
The Electricity Reform Transition Unit - when it presented its final recommendations on the split of ECNZ – said it
expected average wholesale prices would be between 14 and 20 percent lower on average as a result of the introduction of
vigorous competition.
Wholesale prices have, in fact, fallen by 50 percent on average since the beginning of April 1999.
Wholesale prices are obviously affected by weather conditions and hydro lake levels, as well as the reforms. Lake
storage levels are currently running slightly below the historical average, but not dramatically so. It seems fair to
conclude that the current very low wholesale electricity price is a sign of vigorous competition. So, while it is early
days, it appears we are reaping the gains expected from the generation split.
Having said that, these prices are probably not sustainable at these low levels. But it does seem that the Transition
Unit’s prediction will be achieved, and may even prove to be conservative.
Distribution line businesses – unfinished business
While it is easy to reflect positively on developments in wholesale and retail electricity, I still have concerns about
line businesses.
Consumers are almost certainly paying too much for the conveyance of their electricity. Some of my concern stems from
line business valuations, which many of you in this audience probably have a direct hand in.
Continuing increases in ODVs allow line businesses to increase prices without raising profits to levels that might
attract regulatory attention. Over the years, some ODV valuations have lacked rigour, and Government officials have been
forced to continuously tighten the ODV methodology. The Ministry of Commerce is right now in the process of reviewing
the methodology again.
The defining event came in the course of ownership separation, when power companies sold functions such as meter reading
and associated assets without reducing line charges to reflect their new lower cost structures.
At that point, the Government reluctantly concluded that price control must be imposed.
It must be clear from this Government’s track record in promoting competition over our years in office that price
control is not our weapon of choice.
We are prepared to use it, however, in the face of line company intransigence, and the clear lack of the sorts of
incentives you find in competitive markets to minimise costs and lower line charges accordingly.
We are prepared to use it to make sure that consumers – at home and in business – reap the full benefits that the
electricity reforms have to offer.
We are prepared to use it. But our political opponents – Labour, the Alliance, ACT and New Zealand First - have blocked
the legislation that would allow us to take action. Those parties show disregard for the needs of our homes and
businesses. They have come down on the side of monopolies, not consumers.
Nevertheless, I have no doubt that, one way or another, we will see price control imposed on line businesses in the
not-too-distant future, whatever the outcome of the general election.
That is some small comfort.
By then, it will be too late to wind back this year’s line charge increases. Consumers will be the losers. That lost
opportunity is frustrating to the Government. More significantly, it is an unnecessary cost to New Zealand businesses
and households.
Ongoing benefits of the electricity reforms
Price control is a significant piece of unfinished business. Putting it in place will bring real pressure to bear on
line business costs for the first time ever.
Given that distribution line business charges make up about 40 percent of the final bill, they have to be the focus of
government’s attention. Transpower’s prices are also an important factor, and there the Government can maintain pressure
through ownership as well as price control.
The wholesale market has coped well with the changes brought about by the latest reforms. The market boasts more depth
and breadth today than it did prior to the ECNZ split.
Doomsayers predicted that the wholesale market would struggle once generators were freed to sell electricity to
consumers of any size. That has not happened. And won’t happen.
To many consumers, though, the wholesale market is a mystery. What’s real to these people is their power bill.
I congratulate retailers for taking the opportunity presented by the reforms.
I encourage them to push, to compete, to innovate.
I can assure those retailers and their consumers that this Government will continue to put pressure on line charges to
ensure that we deliver the full benefits of the reforms to everyone.
Thank you for your attention. I have time for a few questions.
ENDS