Where does our power come from?
The ability to switch on a light - something which many of us probably take for granted.
Electricity is a huge part of our lives and even a brief cut can prove disastrous, as demonstrated by the Auckland cut on Monday.
But how much do you really know about the state of the electricity sector in New Zealand?
Let's conduct a zap around a short-circuit of New Zealand's electricity supply and have a look at the current state of things. I'll try not to plug any specific companies and I hope you find it en-lightening.
New Zealand's population (estimated by stats.govt.nz as of 2pm, January 26) is 4,352,330 people.
Transpower (a state-owned enterprise) estimates that on average we use 8.12 KWh of electricity each day, which takes 30,000 litres of water to generate.
So, going by that figure, as a nation on average we consume 35,340,919.6 KWh (or 35.24 GWh) each day - requiring 1,060,227,588,000 litres of water. That's over a trillion litres per day - 1.06 cubic kilometres' worth, or twice the amount of water in Sydney Harbour (2 sydharbs).
There are 40 major electricity generation stations connected to the national grid, owned (mainly) by six companies, Contact Energy, Genesis Power, Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, Todd Energy and TrustPower.
The station which produces the most electricity is the Huntly coal/gas station in Waikato, which produces about 17% of New Zealand's power, almost twice as much as the next biggest, the Manapouri hydroelectric station in Fiordland National Park.
Most of the Manapouri station's output is consumed by the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter near Bluff.
High voltage electricity from producers is sent through Transpower's lines to transformers where it is converted into lower voltages for distribution to local consumers.
The power is sold to the user by power retailers, mainly Contact Energy, Empower, Energy Online, Genesis Power, Meridian Energy, Mercury Energy, Bay of Plenty Electricity, King Country Energy and TrustPower.
New Zealand's electricity supply is watched over by the Electricity Commission, a crown entity established in 2003, which reports to the Energy Minister, Gerry Brownlee.
The commission's primary objective, in accordance with the Electricity Act, is to "ensure that electricity is produced and delivered to all classes of consumers in an efficient, fair, reliable and environmentally sustainable manner".
They are also responsible for promoting the conservation of electricity.
Transpower states that their national grid is the "backbone" of New Zealand's power supply, calling it "robust and reliable".
Lines catch on a tree, start a fire and that's it, a massive outage. Hardly what I would call robust.
So, on the surface, it seems this was Transpower's problem, but how did this weakness get past the commission?
As for the future of New Zealand's power supply, our needs are always on the rise and Transpower states "significant investment in new and upgraded transmission lines will be needed".
This is backed up by a warning from the Electricity Commission saying New Zealand is in line for more power cuts due to lack of generation by 2013. They say we need more producers "in order to maintain winter capacity margins above the security threshold".
So, from what I understand, the message is if we don't get more investment in this area soon, the problem won't be in the lines, it will be in the power stations when demand outstrips supply.
Some might think nuclear power is an option. Electricity chair David Caygill argues the cost is too high and that having such a large plant would be putting too many eggs in one basket, should it suffer a problem.
The Electricity Commission is due to be replaced by the Electricity Authority if Gerry Brownlee's Electricity Industry Bill passes into law near the end of 2010.
By the way, this blog is meant to be an overview of the situation in New Zealand. My apologies if I have anything wrong, I am not an expert, but that's about the short of it.
I hope if there are any real experts out there, they will correct me and contribute their opinion.
I'm also really keen to hear from you if you were affected by the outage and in what way it had an impact on your day.
So what are your thoughts on the matter? Were you affected by the outage? How reliant are you on electricity? Is our national grid up to scratch? How will we meet the upcoming power need?
Join Connector on Facebook. Email Luke at connectornz@gmail.com
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Robustness wise, you get what you are prepared to pay for. It does not come for free.
There are two parts to grid robustness:
Can the grid carry the power demand? Each line only has certain carrying capacity.
Is there redundancy? If a link fails then it can't carry power.
These two can gang up. If a line fails can the isolated areas still get enough power (eg. if the Cook Straits link fails can North Island generate enough power to keep itself going?)
We really don't have much redundancy meaning that if one line in the backbone fails, someone is going to be isolated.
If there is reliance on a single backbone then that needs to be very well maintained.
The alternative is to build a second backbone to provide redundancy. Are the Aucklanders prepared to pay for that?
Part of the problem of new generation in NZ is the NIMBY principle. Everyone wants more power generation so they can make their cups of tea, but no-one wants it in their back yard.
@Paul (1) No problems, the giga litres used is indeed based on a calculation from the estimate of average use from Transpower times New Zealand's population. Note that some other forms of power generation require water for cooling as well as hydro-electric. If you carefully read the figures, they don't actually say Tiwai point uses 17% of anything, they say most of Manpouri's output goes in to Tiwai. I think Tiwai is actually NZ's biggest single power consumer, but it does contribute billions to our economy annually. Huntly coal/gas power station produces about 17% of New Zealand's electricity. Tide power is an interesting one. They reckon Cook Strait would be a good site, why do you think it could never happen? Agreed on the people who think windmills are eyesores. Cheers
I Agree Paul #1 - throw it underwater. Sure some snapper might get a quick lesson in chop suiey, but it's a win on visual damage front.. People forget, 'We are an Island', water is our main resource, let's use it!
If want an look at power flow and prices in NZ, realtime, these links are helpful:
Generation, flow and wholesale price:
http://www.em6live.com/Default.aspx
(This can get quite interesting when there is a drought anywhere south of Huntly.)
Prices, real-time and historical:
What amazed me was the amount of yelling and focus shown on TV when Auckland has a problem! If it was CHCH it would not of even been shown or heard about in Auckland but god forbid Auckland. Anyone would think some sort of national 'productivity' takes place there.. Alas,no. :-)
Luke to say Tiwai brings billions into NZ could be a bit wrong, I am sure it has foreign ownership so the only real benefit to NZ would be wages and what is paid for heavily subsidised power, the Bauxite is shipped in from Australia, and the Aluminium is shipped out as ingots not manufactured sheets.
The national grid has had little investment in years, several governments have had the opportunity to demand profit reinvestment into generation and supply, remember the government is the sole shareholder in may of the power companies as they are SOE’s, and before folks say this party did this or that one did that this issue has not come about over night, there has been limited investment since the days of the think big projects.
If one was a conspiracy theorist the claim could be made the agenda is to use the problems we are going to face as justification for price hikes and shoddy service when really its just basic greed.
There is need for redundant transmission and generation. Alternative power sources need to be investigated and invested in, wind, solar, and tidal generation needs to form part of the nations overall power generation. Nimby’s need to get over themselves and realise they are part of the problem, denying wind farming because the either don’t like the look or believe there will be a minor increase in background noise in the middle of essentially nowhere is rubbish offer sensible suggestions people and make it work.
Options to require partially new major buildings to incorporate solar and wind generation need to be investigated. In Lincoln (Canterbury) the recently developed New World has some wind turbines in the car park, they appear to be small and relatively quiet although I don’t live there friends who do have reported no increase in noise, just think if all supermarket and shopping malls generated even a portion of their requirements how the drain on the grid would decrease.
@Luke
"why do you think it could never happen? Agreed on the people who think windmills are eyesores. Cheers"
thanks for the clarification (yes re-reading it carefully makes more sense).
The cynic in me thinks it will never happen because the Greens will worry about the widdle fishies getting upset, and some Iwi is going to claim the seabed it's anschored to is tapu and so on.
Cook strait would be the perfect place for it - its a huge causeway really - water flowing in and out. There are other places up and down the coast where the technology would be a good fit.
There is a kiwi company developing this seabased technology - Stuff even reported on it recently.
More investment or subsidies applied to solar power on roofs like that happening overseas should be happening, the Greens had such a policy that never got started. Could it be because our power companies want to limit supply so as to drive up the price? Or is there little incentive for the govt to act due to high dividends they get back from power companies?
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A little precision please, Paul
Luke, can you clarify if the giga-litres of water used are factual or a calculation based on your per person mwh usage?
And seeing as how the aluminium smelter uses 17% of the largest hydroelectric station's output - that puts a huge hole in the figures and the largest electricity generator isn't hydro - an even bigger hole.
If your numbers are excluding the 17% and the non-hydro generation then please carry on...
The prototypes and forecasting for sea based tidal generators are an awesome idea. Totally renewable, avoiding the ridiculous notion of visual and noise pollution from windfarms (I point and laugh at luddites who have an issue with windfarms) tidal energy production in NZ makes so much sense it's almost guaranteed to never become a source of electricity generation.