Detailed power data on website

By CHRIS DANIELS

Calls for more information about wholesale power prices have been met by the electricity industry, which is posting detailed price data on a new website.

Known as COMITfree, the site shows what price was paid for electricity at 11 points around the country, in two-hour blocks, over the previous two weeks.

As well as final prices, the website also shows a simple graph of national electricity demand and information about hydro lake storage and inflows.

COMIT, which stands for Commodities Market Information Trading, is the computerised trading system used by big power companies to buy and sell blocks of power among one another.

The COMITfree site contains some information previously available only to these big electricity traders.

New Zealand Electricity Market rules committee chairman Toby Stevenson said he thought the main users of the website would be industrial power users, large consumers, Government officials and "industry types who are not directly exposed to the market but are curious about what trends are".

"During the winter of 2001 it became clear that there was a strong desire amongst the public for timely information on electricity prices and the main drivers of price, such as demand and hydrological conditions."

Ralph Matthes, executive director of the Major Energy Users Group, said the website was a lot better than anything provided before, but customers still needed more information about electricity prices.

He said the more pricing details a consumer had, the easier it was to make decisions about new contracts offered by power companies.

One problem with the system was that much of the information was days old.

"In proper markets suppliers and buyers get to see the same information," said Mr Matthes. "COMITfree is just a cut-down version of what the generators and retailers see."

Mr Matthes likened the system to the Stock Exchange, where brokers used the trading platform but everyone could see the prices at which shares were being bought and sold.

COMIT should be the same, where consumers could see exactly what was happening, not having to wait days to see what prices were paid in the week.

Mr Matthes said if a small or medium-sized business wanted to find out exactly what price electricity was being traded for across the country, it would have to buy the full COMIT trading platform.

"It's better than nothing, but why aren't we getting the same information as power companies?"

COMIT Free To Air