Energy and resources spokesperson Simon Court says ACT's energy policy aims to make it easier for people to invest, generate more electricity, build networks and compete for customers’

The ACT Party wants to open electricity networks to competition.

Announcing the party’s energy policy on Friday, ACT energy and resources spokesperson Simon Court said opening up the electricity networks to competition would give New Zealanders “more freedom” to generate and sell power, and “make monopoly lines companies prove consumers are getting value before loading more costs onto their power bills.”

“New Zealand became a prosperous country in part because we were blessed with abundant energy. But you cannot maintain a first-world standard of living without reliable, affordable power,” Court said.

“When energy becomes scarce and expensive, households feel it in their power bills, businesses face higher costs, investment becomes harder, and ultimately New Zealanders’ standard of living suffers.”

“The answer is not for politicians to go looking for successful businesses to blame or promising to pull the electricity market apart … We need to make it easier for people to invest, generate more electricity, build the networks needed to move it, and compete for customers. That is how New Zealand gets abundant electricity and lower costs,” he said.

ACT says it will: 

• Encourage investment and innovation by putting “competition and fair access first and strengthen enforcement where electricity companies misuse market power to block a better deal for consumers”
• Let people sell the power they make. New Zealanders will have the right to choose their buyer and export more electricity when the network has room
• Open transmission to private investment by allowing private investors to build, own and operate new transmission connected to the National Grid where they meet common technical and reliability standards
• Break the connection “bottleneck” by letting qualified providers compete to deliver customer-funded connection work faster and cheaper
• Make batteries and smarter grid technology compete with expensive new lines so consumers are “not charged for gold-plating when a cheaper solution will do”

Court said New Zealand needed stronger networks to support population growth, electrification and new generation.

“New Zealand needs to build the infrastructure that we need while using competition, technology and transparency to stop unnecessary costs becoming permanently embedded in household power bills.”

“High power prices will not be fixed by politicians looking for a business to blame or an industry to meddle in. The problem is when regulation makes it too hard for new generation, new technology and new competitors to enter the market,” Court said.

“ACT will open the electricity system to competition and investment so Kiwi households and businesses have access to reliable electricity at a price they can afford.”

Proposals to break up gentailers 'unhelpful' and 'destructive'

NZ First, Labour and the Greens all think the electricity market needs to change - with NZ First leader Winston Peters announcing in March that his party wanted to split the big power gentailer companies into separate generators and retailers. 

The Green Party has a Member’s Bill from MP Scott Willis sitting in the biscuit tin that aims to separate the generators and retailers. And in July, the Greens shared its energy policy which included creating a publicly-owned entity called Kiwipower to deliver what the "market has failed to build".

Meanwhile Labour has signalled it is leaving the door open to "fundamental changes" to the country's electricity market but has yet to release any policy on this.

National leader Christopher Luxon previously told RNZ that it was not something his party would be campaigning on. “Our view is that splitting up the gentailers would drive a lot of uncertainty in the energy sector when we need a lot of certainty right now."

Speaking to reporters about ACT's energy policy in Parliament on Friday, Court said the party was signalling very clearly that they did not believe in "breaking up companies that are delivering electricity, that have very long-term, extensive investment plans ahead of them".

"It is incredibly unhelpful, destructive, introduces this sovereign risk that New Zealand is just clawing its way out of after the previous Labour Government banned oil and gas exploration. The last thing ACT wants to do is to be part of a future government that is threatening to break up businesses like electricity companies and supermarkets."

Asked how likely he thought it was that the gentailers would get broken up, Court said: "If ACT has anything to do with it, not at all." 

"People are genuinely concerned about these matters but threatening to intervene in businesses, while it might make for for a slogan, a soundbite, a headline, it is not good policy."

Energy policy a high priority for ACT

Asked if New Zealand had the capability to make some of these changes currently, Court said it simply can't happen right now because the regulation doesn't allow it. 

He said it would require further investment but "unless we clear the playing field of this ridiculous red tape that is stopping Kiwis from generating our own electricity and getting the best price for it, or donating it to a family member or a school, we're never going to be able to actually take that step".

When it came to the timeline of ACT's energy policy, Court told reporters it was a priority because energy affordability was top of mind for New Zealanders.

"This would be a high priority for ACT. Some of this involves tweaks to regulations. That's not like a major reform."