The Electricity Corporation of New Zealand Ltd (ECNZ) is a
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
state-owned enterprise
A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a Government, government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn Profit (econom ...
(SOE) formed on 1 April 1987, as a transition entity in the process of
deregulating the
New Zealand electricity market
The New Zealand electricity market (NZEM) is a decentralised electricity market regulated by the Electricity Industry Participation Code administered by the Electricity Authority (EA). The authority was established in November 2010 to replace th ...
. Most of ECNZ's remaining liabilities were resolved in the late 2000s, and ECNZ is a residual entity with the sole remaining task of winding up a series of land title issues.
Formation
In the 1980s the
New Zealand Electricity Department (NZED), a government department, controlled and operated almost all New Zealand electricity generation and operated the electricity
transmission grid
Electric power transmission is the bulk movement of electrical energy from a generating site, such as a power plant, to an electrical substation. The interconnected lines that facilitate this movement form a ''transmission network''. This is d ...
. The first phase of deregulation saw the New Zealand Government
corporatise the NZED and form the state-owned enterprise ECNZ.
Division
In 1994,
Transpower was separated from ECNZ and created as an SOE to own and operate the national grid. In 1996, ECNZ was split into two SOEs, ECNZ and
Contact Energy
Contact Energy Limited is a New Zealand electricity generation, electricity generator, a wholesaler of natural gas, and a retailer of electricity retailing, electricity, natural gas, broadband and Liquefied petroleum gas, LPG.
It is the second- ...
, and on 1 April 1999 ECNZ was split into three electricity generation SOEs:
*
Genesis Energy,
*
Meridian Energy
Meridian Energy Limited is a New Zealand electricity generator and retailer. The company generates the largest proportion of New Zealand's electricity, generating 35 percent of the country's electricity in the year ending December 2014, and is ...
, and
* Mighty River Power (now
Mercury Energy
Mercury NZ Limited is a New Zealand electricity generation and multi-product utility retailer of electricity, gas, broadband and mobile telephone services. All the company's electricity generation is renewable.
In August 2021, Mercury acquired ...
).
All three remain in existence, along with Contact Energy and Transpower.
ECNZ was originally proposed to be wound up by 2009, but resolving the few remaining land title issues has taken years longer than originally expected.
See also
*
Electricity sector in New Zealand
The electricity sector in New Zealand uses mainly renewable energy, such as Hydroelectricity, hydropower, geothermal energy, geothermal power and increasingly wind energy. , 82% of electricity is generated from renewable sources, making New Zea ...
References
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Government-owned companies of New Zealand
Electric power companies of New Zealand