Fitzsimons Jeanette: Electricity (Renewable Preference) Repeal Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Electricity (Renewable Preference) Repeal Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:932] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 It is very easy to demolish things. It is very easy to repeal things. It does not take very long to destroy things. It takes a lot more creativity time and effort to actually build things up. I guess we could say that the one good feature that this Electricity (Renewable Preference) Repeal Bill has is its brevity. Part 1 consists of four words. In essence the entire bill consists of four words but those four words have quite an effect. 
I want to go back to something the Hon Dr Nick Smith said in his first reading speech on the bill because it was a very significant few words. He said “the genesis of this bill” several times. We know about the genesis of this bill; we know that Genesis was the genesis of this bill. We know that this repeal bill is being rushed through urgency because Genesis—one of the three State-owned power companies—plans to build the biggest gas-fired power station ever in New Zealand’s history up on the Kaipara. It is concerned that under this bill it would have to apply for permission to do so. Of course Genesis is New Zealand’s fossil generator. It runs the Huntly power station burning the coal that produces the majority of our electricity greenhouse emissions. Genesis runs e3p the gas-fired station that produces some more of our carbon dioxide emissions. 
Because Genesis has been focused on fossil fuels for so long it has not developed expertise in geothermal and wind and it has missed the boat in terms of getting access to the best sites in New Zealand where those renewable sources are. This plant is not about New Zealand’s needs for electricity; we could easily demonstrate that this plant is not needed for New Zealand’s electricity supply. This plant is about Genesis’s profits. Why is it that Genesis has to make profits? It goes back to a certain Max Bradford who split up an integrated efficient single national generator into five profit-making entities that had to compete. Although it might be very sensible for the power consumers and for New Zealand’s industry to let those businesses that have expertise in renewable energy like geothermal and wind to get on and build more in fact Genesis has to build more in order to compete. That is what this bill is all about. No other generator wants to build fossil generators at the moment. 
Meridian has already positioned itself as a wholly renewable generator is proud of it and trades on that. People have switched power companies just to buy from Meridian because it is wholly renewable. TrustPower is also totally renewable but it is quite small. Contact Energy is also a fossil generator and it has some gas-fired plants. But members of Contact Energy came to see me quite some time back before this part of the bill was even drafted and said that they already had consent for a new gas-fired power station they were going to build in Otahuhu. They decided to put it on the back-burner because they thought it was better to build geothermal and wind and they could build enough geothermal and wind for New Zealand’s needs without having to build any more fossil as long as they could get them through the consent process and they are getting them through the consent process just fine. So Contact Energy is building renewable generation even though it is a fossil generator. Mighty River Power has hydro and a lot of geothermal is into a lot more geothermal and is not proposing any fossil power stations. 
There is only Genesis and Genesis is the genesis of this bill. If it builds its nearly 500-megawatt plant which is very big up on the Kaipara what will happen to the New Zealand electricity system? First the next renewable energy power plant will not be built because if there is a big fossil plant sitting there that is able to run nobody is going to invest money in renewable generation as it will corner the market first. We will have an oversupply. Of course the Major Electricity Users Group wants these stations to be built because it wants an oversupply of electricity to bring the price down as generators desperately try to sell it to someone. That is what will benefit its members. That does not benefit New Zealand; New Zealand still has to pay all that unnecessary capital cost. 
The Government says it supports the 90 percent renewable generation target. If that is true it simply has not thought through its position. We have done the numbers. We did the numbers with the Ministry of Economic Development and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority. It is not possible to meet that target if the Genesis plant is built without closing a lot of other perfectly good gas-fired power stations. When we project forward the growth rate in electricity demand and we look at how we would get from 70 percent or a bit less to 90 percent by 2025 we find that we not only need to close the Huntly power station which would be a very good idea but we need to close another of the existing gas plants as well replace it with renewable generation and build no more fossil plants. So the Government cannot possibly support the target of 90 percent renewable energy unless it is planning for people to build more fossil plants just in order to close perfectly good ones that are operating already. There are plenty of renewable energy plants to build. Some are being built and a lot more could be built. 
The irony of all this is that Part 6A of the Electricity Act has a specific exemption for Genesis. We always called it the Genesis clause. It is section 62G(1)(e) and it covers exactly the situation that Paul Hutchison was talking about a minute ago where we want to build a more efficient plant to replace a less efficient plant. I argued strongly that that clause should be taken out because we have already built two gas-fired power stations in New Zealand on the grounds that they would back out Huntly power station. They were more efficient than Huntly and Huntly was to be closed in favour first of all of the Stratford gas-fired power station in the 1990s and then secondly for e3p on the Huntly site. Both of them got permission and support on the grounds really that they were more efficient than Huntly but Huntly still runs full bore on coal. So are we to justify a third big gas-fired plant on the basis that it will back out Huntly then a fourth and then a fifth and will Huntly still be running in 50 years’ time? It is ridiculous! 
It is time to replace Huntly with renewable generation. We have the geothermal capacity to do that we have the wind capacity to do that we have the capacity for more direct solar and coming on stream in I would guess around 10 years is marine energy—tidal and wave—which will contribute in the future. We simply do not need to fill up the atmosphere with carbon dioxide in order to keep warm even if we are stupid enough to want to keep our heated towel rails running 24/7 with no towels on them which is what some people use electricity for today.