Meridian Energy
Meridian Energy Limited, a
New Zealand-based
company, performs
electricity generation and
electricity retailing. The company generates the largest proportion of New Zealand's electricity, providing for approximately one-third of the country's power needs (12,000
GWh).
Greenpeace has
judged it the only "green" electricity company in New Zealand.
In
New Zealand the company owns and operates nine
hydroelectic generating stations in the
South Island: eight on the
Waitaki River, and the country's largest hydroelectric station -
Manapouri Power Station - on
Lake Manapouri. Meridian sells power to approximately 200,000 customers, primarily located in the
South Island. Major offices of the company operate from
Christchurch and from
Twizel, a head office in
Wellington.
As of 2006, the
CEO of Meridian is Dr
Keith Turner.
Meridian has started to build new generation-capacity in line with a commitment it made in 2004 to develop only renewable forms of power generation, such as hydroelectricity and wind-power. It has several
wind-farm projects in progress. Meridian operates the new
Te Apiti wind farm -
currently New Zealand's largest. It stands north of the
Manawatu Gorge in the
North Island.
Meridian originated from the breakup of the
Electricity Corporation of New Zealand (ECNZ) in
1999 as a result of the reforms of the
New Zealand electricity market. Meridian's share of ECNZ became
corporatised as a
state-owned enterprise with its own
board of directors and with two Ministerial shareholders: the
Minister of Finance and the Minister of
State Owned Enterprises.
*
2001 - Meridian purchased five mini hydro-power stations in
Australia. These stations linked with dams used primarily for irrigation, and have a total generating capacity of 62
MW.
* September
2001 - Meridian purchased the
South Island customer-base of Natural Gas Corporation (NGC), at the time
New Zealand's largest electricity retailer. The purchase came towards the end of an exceptionally dry autumn. Low hydro-levels had driven the wholesale market spot prices to very high levels. NGC had purchased the customer-base when
Canada's
Trans Alta quit New Zealand. NGC re-branded itself as
OnEnergy to escape the poor reputation of the "Trans Alta" brand. OnEnergy found itself with insufficient generation capacity to stand the high winter market prices, and had made the critical mistake of not purchasing any
hedge contracts. It attempted to raise its retail prices, but its customers then flocked to other retailers. Finally, after sufferring huge losses, NGC had perforce to quit the retail sector, selling its customer-base to two of the Government's companies: Meridian and
Genesis Power Limited. At that point the New Zealand
electricity market became further
vertically integrated, and many have come to believe that this adversely affected competition in the
retail electricity market.
* April
2003 - Meridian extended its operations in Australia with the purchase of
Southern Hydro, increasing its Australian generating capacity by 540 MW.
* Southern Hemisphere Winter
2003 - Low hydro inflows and storage levels again resulted in exceptional wholesale market spot prices. As a consequence, the retailers
TrustPower and
Freshstart abandoned market areas where they had no generation. This strengthened Meridian's dominance of the South Island customer-base.
*
29 March 2004 - Meridian cancelled
Project Aqua [
1], a controversial 524 MW power scheme for six dams and a man-made
canal on the Lower
Waitaki River in
North Otago. The scheme allegedly represented the last opportunity for large-scale hydroelectric development of this magnitude in New Zealand. Abandoning the venture cost Meridian NZ $38.7 million. - Meridian stopped the scheme because of uncertainty over rights to use the water, growing costs, and the difficulties and uncertainties with obtaining consents under the
Resource Management Act legislation. In July
2004, Meridian announced an independent audit of the abandoned scheme.
*
9 December 2004 - New Zealand's
Prime Minister,
Helen Clark officially opened
Te Apiti - Meridian's first wind-farm.
*
2 June 2005 - Meridian announced a proposal to develop a wind-farm west of
Wellington. The "Project West Wind" proposal envisages up to 70 wind turbines with a total capacity of 210 MW, built across 55.8 square km on rural land near
Makara at the south-western tip of the
North Island. A local pressure group, the
Makara Guardians, opposes the scheme.Successful application for resource consent for the project was announced on the first of february 2006.
*
30 November 2005 - Meridian completed the sale of its Australian operation,
Southern Hydro, for $A1.42 billion ($NZ1.52 billion) to
Australian Gas Light Company. [
2]. Meridian had steadily expanded and upgraded its assets in Australia since purchase, including commissioning a 91MW wind-farm. Nevertheless, the sale commanded a hefty premium, driven by new demand for renewable energy-generation because of mandatory Australian requirements that electricity retailers sell a proportion of renewable energy.
*
Meridian Energy*
Southern Hydro*
Competition in NZ Electricity
