Transpower says it has asked for alternatives

Ralph Craven

Ralph Craven is chief executive of Transpower, the state-owned enterprise that owns, manages and maintains the national power grid. The Herald asked him why the new power line was necessary.

Q: What are the alternatives? What could remove or delay the need for the line?

A: Dr Craven says Transpower has asked widely for proposals that could solve the security-of-supply problem for the upper North Island without the need for the new Waikato line. None stacked up.

"We did go out with a request for information - that was fairly public knowledge and it went out to the industry participants and to the public at large seeking responses that we could look at and judge whether they were of such a type to cause us to delay the timing on the line."

Q: What would be necessary - what quality or type of proposal would do that?

A:"Generation North of Auckland or in and around Auckland would be one type of proposal that could delay the line, or even postpone it for quite some time. But it all depends on what the type and size of the generation proposal really is."

Q: What about the plans by Mighty River Power to commission the mothballed Marsden B power station?

A: "They have to measure up to providing the same type of reliability as the transmission line provides. What came back to our request was - there were no responses from generators.

"Even if they were to proceed, all it would do would delay the line for a number of years.

"The most important thing we're looking at in terms of timing and alternatives is certainty. We've always said that if it's certain then we could take it into account, because we're now getting to the point where we've got five years between now and when we say the line needs to be there."

Mighty River Power has only just started the consent process, says Dr Craven, and has yet to commit to its Marsden B plans. And there is not enough time to sit around and wait.

"It will be a huge commercial decision for the Transpower board to make a commitment to the sort of expenditure we're talking about. A project of this nature hasn't been carried out in New Zealand for some time - we're talking decades.

"It is going to take a minimum of three years once we start the contracting phase, and we can't start that until we've got the property rights.

"Five years is our timeline ... if Mighty River Power or anyone else comes to us in 12 months' time, we're already too late if we're waiting for them to come up with an answer.

"We are balancing private interests against national interests. We are balancing local interests against national interests. Those two aspects are ones that we are really quite sensitive and conscious about.

"We are trying our best to find a path through that and abide by all legislative requirements on us."

Q: Transpower's sole job is to build, run and maintain the national grid. Does this mean that for you people the answer to every question is 'more transmission'?

A: "Others have posed this to us. There's no easy answer to it. I guess one needs to understand it's the way the sector and the market run at the moment.

"Transpower has the role to make sure there's a national grid that's fit for purpose, and one way we're doing that is to say: are there any alternatives?

"What are we trying to do here? We are trying to make sure we have the capability to provide a secure supply.

"We understand what our rights and possibilities are, but we are trying to weave a way through it."

Dr Craven says infrastructure needs to be ready so that the other companies - the generators - can build new stations and start sending power where it is needed.