Contact Energy gas price hike: Tens of thousands of customers will see average 17% jump
Tens of thousands of households will see their gas prices hiked by an average of 17% as Contact Energy says the decline in production has hit faster and harder than expected.
“We work hard to ensure our customers are on a competitive gas rate,” Contact’s chief retail officer Carolyn Luey said.
“We are balancing the need for energy security with a constrained gas supply as the country transitions to a renewable energy future.”
Contact has “committed more than $2 billion on building the critical energy infrastructure New Zealand needs”, Luey said.
“In the past financial year, our entire net profit – and some – was invested in developing renewable energy projects.
“The more power stations we build, the faster prices will come down over time. And this will help ensure New Zealand has a secure, sustainable renewable energy supply for households and businesses.”
A letter to one affected customer in Wellington said their prices would rise more than 20% on December 1, the Post reported.
One of Contact’s energy plans will see prices increased to 14.9 cents per kilowatt hour, excluding GST or prompt-payment discounts, the Post said.
It would see each gigajoule (GJ) of gas priced around $41.40, excluding GST, the Post said.
The latest spot price for gas today was $13.12, Transpower-owned EMS Tradepoint showed. The average price for the quarter was listed today as $15.98.
Statistics NZ last week revealed September price figures.
Gas was 17% more expensive than a year ago and 1.4% more expensive than the month before, the data showed.
The Post reported the country’s largest gas user, methanol producer Methanex, was believed to pay $6/GJ. Other businesses are paying $25 or more per GJ, a BusinessNZ survey from August found.
Contact Energy chief executive Mike Fuge told the Herald in August: “No one foresaw the collapse on the upstream gas market, and how rapid it was going to be.
“The answer is to get off base load gas [for continuous power generation], as we’ve done, and to build more renewables as we’re doing.
“And the answer is to actually keep going.”
Contact earlier reported a net profit of $331 million and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and financial instruments (ebitdaf) of $872m for the 2025 financial year.
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Even Australians get it - so why not Kiwis???
“Ten years ago, if a heatwave as intense as last week’s record-breaker had hit the east coast, Australia’s power supply may well have buckled. But this time, the system largely operated as we needed, despite some outages.
On Australia’s main grid last quarter, renewables and energy storage contributed more than 50% of supplied electricity for the first time, while wholesale power prices were more than 40% lower than a year earlier.
[…] shifting demand from gas and coal for power and petrol for cars is likely to deliver significantly lower energy bills for households.
Last quarter, wind generation was up almost 30%, grid solar 15% and grid-scale batteries almost tripled their output. Gas generation fell 27% to its lowest level for a quarter century, while coal fell 4.6% to its lowest quarterly level ever.
Gas has long been the most expensive way to produce power. Gas peaking plants tend to fire up only when supply struggles to meet demand and power prices soar. Less demand for gas has flowed through to lower wholesale prices.”
Full article: www.theguardian.com...
If even Australians see the benefit of solar - then why is NZ actively boycotting solar uptake? The increased line rental for electricity was done to make solar less competitive and prevent cost per kWh to rise even more than it did - and electricity costs are expected to rise even more. Especially as National favours gas - which is the most expensive form of generating electricity. Which in turn will accelerate Climate Change, as if New Zealand didn’t have enough problems with droughts, floods, slips, etc. already.
Time to Tickle Your Thinker 🧠
If a zookeeper had 100 pairs of animals in her zoo, and two pairs of babies are born for each one of the original animals, then (sadly) 23 animals don’t survive, how many animals do you have left in total?
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Poll: As a customer, what do you think about automation?
The Press investigates the growing reliance on your unpaid labour.
Automation (or the “unpaid shift”) is often described as efficient ... but it tends to benefit employers more than consumers.
We want to know: What do you think about automation?
Are you for, or against?
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9.5% For. Self-service is less frustrating and convenient.
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43.3% I want to be able to choose.
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47.2% Against. I want to deal with people.
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