Meridian Energy

Meridian Energy

Type	State-owned enterprise
Predecessor	Electricity Corporation of New Zealand
Founded	1999 (1999)
Headquarters	Wellington, New Zealand
Key people	Tim Lusk, Chief Executive
Industry	Electricity generation Electricity retailing
Revenue	▼ NZ$1,892,400,000 (2008-09)[1]
Operating income	▼ NZ$228,900,000 (2008-09)[1]
Profit	▼ NZ$89,300,000 (2008-09)[1]
Total assets	NZ$7,177,300,000 (2008-09)[1]
Total equity	NZ$4,284,100,000 (2008-09)[1]
Website	www.meridianenergy.co.nz

Meridian Energy Limited, a New Zealand state-owned enterprise, generates and retails electricity. The company generates the largest proportion of New Zealand's electricity, 27% in 2008.^[2]. Greenpeace has judged it the only "green" electricity company in New Zealand.^[3] In 2007, it was certified as the first carbon neutral energy company in New Zealand^[4]. This certification covered electricity generated up until June 2008^[5].

In New Zealand the company owns and operates nine hydroelectric 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 183,000 customers^[6], primarily in the South Island. The company has major offices in Christchurch and Twizel, with a new head office in Wellington.

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 Te Apiti Wind Farm north of the Manawatu Gorge in the North Island -currently^[update], White Hill (58 MW from 29 2 MW turbines), six kilometres south-east of Mossburn in Southland and West Wind currently (April 2009) under construction on Terawhiti Station and Makara Farm west of Wellington. It owns the Brooklyn Wind Turbine in Wellington, which it inherited in 1999 when the company was formed; it was part of an earlier research project.

History

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 was 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 suffering 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, 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 - then Prime Minister Helen Clark officially opened the Te Apiti Wind Farm - Meridian's first wind farm.

• 2 June 2005 - Meridian announced a proposal to develop a wind farm west of Wellington, Project West Wind with 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, opposed the scheme. Successful application for resource consent for the project was announced on 21 December 2005. The consent was subsequently appealed and upheld in May 2007.^[7]

• 30 November 2005 - Meridian completed the sale of its Australian operation, Southern Hydro, for AU$1.42 billion (NZ$1.52 billion) to Australian Gas Light Company. Meridian had steadily expanded and upgraded its assets in Australia since purchase, including commissioning a 91 MW wind-farm. 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.

• 8 June, 2007 - The White Hill Wind Farm is officially opened.^[8]

• 29 April, 2009 - Prime Minister John Key officially turns on the first 15 turbines on the West Wind wind farm. ^[9]

Power Stations

Operating

Meridian Energy operates nine hydroelectric power stations and three wind farms. It also operates the 230 kW Wellington Wind Turbine in Brooklyn, Wellington

Proposed

Projects being developed by Meridian Energy include the following ^[11].

Subsidiaries

• Arc Innovations, developing smart meters that are being installed in its Christchurch customers’ households and enabling better use of energy.
• Cleantech America, a solar power company based in California, USA.^[14] Cleantech develops utility scale photovoltaic solar farms, such as the 5 MW CalRENEW-1 facility at Mendota, California.
• Damwatch Services Limited, consultancy specialising in dam engineering, safety and surveillance.
• Energy for Industry Limited, an industrial energy company with on-site fossil and wood waste fueled plants
• Powershop, an electricity retail broker
• Right House Limited, providing household advice on energy efficiency
• Whisper Tech Limited, producer of the WhisperGen micro combined heat and power system

See also

• Electricity sector in New Zealand

References

External links

• Meridian Energy website
• the Meridian headquarters building
• Energy for Industry - a subsidiary company
• Right House - Meridian's energy efficiency programme
• Aurora history of competition in NZ electricity