National grid now close to capacity

By LIAM DANN

As if the nation's power generation woes weren't enough to worry about.

We are now running out of capacity on the national grid, Transpower chief executive Ralph Craven told delegates at the National Power conference in Auckland yesterday.

Without significant investment there was a growing risk that during winter any technical failures could lead to voltage collapse and blackouts, he said.

Craven outlined Transpower's plans to invest about $1.5 billion to get the grid up to speed by 2010.

"That's just a good ballpark figure," he said.

After 2010 the company estimates it will need to invest a further $100 million a year until 2020.

Transpower will cover the initial costs from its own balance sheet but will look for a return on its investment.

Who pays for that will decided by the Electricity Commission later this year. Ultimately the costs will flow through to consumers.

But Craven said the good news was that even with those costs the transmission component of the average power bill was falling in percentage terms. That was mainly because the costs of new generation were growing faster.

Most of the development work will be increasing capacity into the Auckland and Christchurch regions.

The plans require Transpower to acquire access to about 220 kilometres of land, 65 metres wide. Around 700 new transmission towers need to be built.

At present only two per cent of Transpower's grid was actually on its own land, Craven said.

In terms of acquiring easements, the next 10 years of development was new territory for both the company and the community, he said.

Most of New Zealand's transmission capacity was built in the 1960s or earlier.