Solar Export Prices

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cshwone

1105 posts

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#3502069 11-Jun-2026 13:27

gzt: @cshwone, is this a case of wanting the Genesis benefits without the disadvantages? ; )

Not at all, I only used my particular case as an example. Shopping around you see cases where the export rate is higher but then so are the peak import rates. Or peak export rates are low but off peak export rates are high. Daily lines charges are also a big factor and vary considerably. It is an absolute minefield.

However, the theme that runs across all electricity companies is that the export rate, as a factor of the import rate, is abysmally low. The gentailers are making more profit from the consumers capital investment.

wellygary

8947 posts

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+1 received by user: 5493

#3502083 11-Jun-2026 14:21

cshwone:

However, the theme that runs across all electricity companies is that the export rate, as a factor of the import rate, is abysmally low. The gentailers are making more profit from the consumers capital investment.

Because unless you are Meridian, The other gentailers have no ability to offset their own grid production by buying your rooftop solar.

Mercury's dams on the Waikato are basically run of river, They're only allowed to vary lake Taupo by a maximum of 1.4m (~600Gwh)

Everything else is pretty much instant dispatch (Wind, geothermal, commercial solar)

Contact and Genesis are in a similar boat, the only generation they can really scale back is thermal, and during daylight hours this doesn't usually run very hard at all - (Except basically in Winter)

Lots of rooftop solar is a bag of hammers for commercial grid operators, and you only have to look across to OZ to see where it can end up with dynamic generation controls being mandated on pretty much all new instals.

cshwone

1105 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 860

#3502089 11-Jun-2026 14:59

wellygary:

cshwone:

However, the theme that runs across all electricity companies is that the export rate, as a factor of the import rate, is abysmally low. The gentailers are making more profit from the consumers capital investment.

Because unless you are Meridian, The other gentailers have no ability to offset their own grid production by buying your rooftop solar.

Mercury's dams on the Waikato are basically run of river, They're only allowed to vary lake Taupo by a maximum of 1.4m (~600Gwh)

Everything else is pretty much instant dispatch (Wind, geothermal, commercial solar)

Contact and Genesis are in a similar boat, the only generation they can really scale back is thermal, and during daylight hours this doesn't usually run very hard at all - (Except basically in Winter)

Lots of rooftop solar is a bag of hammers for commercial grid operators, and you only have to look across to OZ to see where it can end up with dynamic generation controls being mandated on pretty much all new instals.

So the takeaway from this is the generation and retailing should be decoupled?

wellygary

8947 posts

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+1 received by user: 5493

#3502093 11-Jun-2026 15:18

cshwone:

So the takeaway from this is the generation and retailing should be decoupled?

Probably would not make much difference, the Grid is still the grid, the generators will still be generating Electrons they need to do something with,

If there was money in paying more for your solar, places like Electric Kiwi should be banging down doors offering better buy back rates... but unless you sign up o a peak pricing plan their standard rate is only 9c/unit...

SolarZero tried to arbitrage the market by buying in customers' solar, storing it in a battery and then selling it to the market in peak times, They managed to burn through a couple of $100 million and still couldn't make the model work...

fastbike

531 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 404

#3502116 11-Jun-2026 16:44

wellygary:

cshwone:

So the takeaway from this is the generation and retailing should be decoupled?

Probably would not make much difference, the Grid is still the grid, the generators will still be generating Electrons they need to do something with,

If there was money in paying more for your solar, places like Electric Kiwi should be banging down doors offering better buy back rates... but unless you sign up o a peak pricing plan their standard rate is only 9c/unit...

You're ignoring the gaming of the market that the 4 gentailers engage in.
All of the small retailers cannot compete so end up going bust or getting bought out.

ComCom are useless.

Otautahi Christchurch

wellygary

8947 posts

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+1 received by user: 5493

#3502123 11-Jun-2026 17:07

fastbike:

You're ignoring the gaming of the market that the 4 gentailers engage in.
All of the small retailers cannot compete so end up going bust or getting bought out.

ComCom are useless.

Creating another layer of profit seeking companies between the customer and the generator is probably not the way to lower prices....

Also in such a situational, keeping the generators out of the commercial market would be difficult, I mean at what consumption level do you allow generators to sell directly to customers.. Tiwai... a Pulp mill, an office block??

There s little sense in preventing Generators directly selling to large commercial users, but where-ever you set the level, you simply create an incentive for smaller users to band together so they can be big enough to "cut out" the retailer middle man....

Pretty much all the pricing power in the market is in the hands of the Generators, whether they have directly attached retailers or not is probably just window dressing...

New World

Shop on-line at New World now for your groceries (affiliate link).

fastbike

531 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 404

#3502130 11-Jun-2026 18:20

wellygary:

fastbike:

You're ignoring the gaming of the market that the 4 gentailers engage in.
All of the small retailers cannot compete so end up going bust or getting bought out.

ComCom are useless.

Creating another layer of profit seeking companies between the customer and the generator is probably not the way to lower prices....

Also in such a situational, keeping the generators out of the commercial market would be difficult, I mean at what consumption level do you allow generators to sell directly to customers.. Tiwai... a Pulp mill, an office block??

There s little sense in preventing Generators directly selling to large commercial users, but where-ever you set the level, you simply create an incentive for smaller users to band together so they can be big enough to "cut out" the retailer middle man....

Pretty much all the pricing power in the market is in the hands of the Generators, whether they have directly attached retailers or not is probably just window dressing...

The sector needs a thorough shakeup as it has not delivered what mad max promised close on 30 years ago.

If I were redesigning the sector from scratch, I would:

Separate retail from generation ownership and forbid cross ownership.
Keep several competing generators.
Create a publicly owned strategic reserve and dry-year insurance mechanism.
Improve hedge-market access for independent retailers.
Set explicit affordability and reliability targets.

That approach preserves investment incentives and competition while addressing the biggest weakness in the current New Zealand market: the advantages that vertically integrated gentailers enjoy over independent retailers and consumers.

As an alternative, a fully publicly owned generation company could probably reduce financing costs (govt bonds are cheaper) and potentially lower prices, but the long-term risk is that electricity investment becomes a political rather than economic decision.

We need to balance the risk of underinvestment (usually a more costly failure) against higher prices.

For an electricity system expected to support widespread electrification over the next 30 years this needs to be resolved.

Anyway, probably a bit off track, but relevant to the OP observation above the spread between his export/import prices.

Otautahi Christchurch

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