Lisa M. Curran

2 months ago | lexology.com | Natasha Hood |Sarah Sinclair |Scott Thompson |John Conlan |Stephanie de Groot |Paul Foley | +4 more

At the end of 2024, Transpower, along with Northland’s electricity distribution businesses Northpower and Top Energy, released their Resilience, Reliability and an Energy Bridge – Te Tai Tokerau Northland discussion paper. This paper followed the June 2024 Northland tower collapse which cut electricity to 88,000 people and caused a financial loss of more than $37.5 million.

Aug 27, 2024 | lexology.com | Natasha Hood |Sarah Sinclair |Scott Thompson |John Conlan |Stephanie de Groot |Paul Foley | +4 more

The Electricity Authority (EA) released a decision paper in July on potential solutions for the peak electricity capacity issues. It has decided to pursue a package of six solutions which will support its long-term view of security of supply. In the following paragraphs we summarise the EA’s outlook across the short, medium, and long-term horizons.

May 27, 2024 | lexology.com | Natasha Hood |Sarah Sinclair |Scott Thompson |John Conlan |Stephanie de Groot |Paul Foley | +3 more

This month saw “electricity crisis” headlines proliferate with an unseasonal cold snap and low wind generation causing Transpower to release a warning notice and ask New Zealanders to reduce power use. After a long period of no growth, reports this month also suggest electricity demand in New Zealand is increasing.

May 13, 2024 | lexology.com | Natasha Hood |John Conlan |Scott Thompson |Sarah Sinclair |Stephanie de Groot |Paul Foley | +3 more

In recent years, it has become common for utility-scale solar projects in Australia to include a grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) to provide energy generated by the solar farm to the grid outside of the times when the sun is shining.

Apr 1, 2024 | lexology.com | Natasha Hood |Sarah Sinclair |Scott Thompson |John Conlan |Stephanie de Groot |Paul Foley | +4 more

Aotearoa New Zealand is in the midst of a solar revolution, with solar farm developments contributing to over half of the new renewable energy projects in the country. Large-scale solar developments are a relatively new development in New Zealand, and we can look to earlier adopters of solar (whether rooftop or utility-scale) for lessons on how to deal with long-term issues that can arise with this technology.