2026 Fuel Prices & Security of Supply

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#3468918 11-Mar-2026 14:20

SaltyNZ:

You'd like to think so but one of the things that was apparent during COVID - and also spelled out again in the second commission report that was just released - is that a lot of people are a lot more suspicious, angry and ultimately rebellious about the government than you'd think. Oh, I have to stop my discretionary driving do I because there's a shortage? Fake news. I happen to know our fuel doesn't come from Iran, so f*** you G-man, I'm going to drive twice as much just because.

From COVID, there is a bit of a window before the misinformation machine spins up.

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#3468921 11-Mar-2026 14:33

michaelmurfy:

networkn: It's already a problem. We are at or beyond our capacity multiple times a year, even a modest increase would be problematic.

See @SaltyNZ's answer below yours which nails this. Imagine all the solar we could buy and network upgrades we could complete for the cost of a LNG terminal to get true energy independence.

Although its not actually as much as you think thou....

Meridian are currently spending $227 million for 130MW solar at Ruakura, which will output 216Gwh annually https://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/public/Investors/Reports-and-presentations/Investor-presentations/2024/ruakaka-solar-announcement-March-2025.pdf

Back of the envelope says $1B = roughly 1000Gwh,

Annually NZ produces ~44,000 Gwh, so its a ~2% increase in supply...

Liquid fuel imports last year were ~250 PJ, that's roughly equivalent to 70,000 Gwh,

at a 4:1 efficiency, to electrify the NZ vehicle fleet you'd need to build ~20,000 Gwh + a whole pile of distribution, + NZers hold cars for a long time so its likely 10 years+ to turn the fleet over....+ solving the dry year storage risk...

So a couple of billion is not really going to touch the sides on giving you energy independence..

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#3468923 11-Mar-2026 14:36

networkn:

Heh, panic buying of EV's to avoid the uncertainty around petrol supply and pricing, will simply cause power shortages, and a spike in energy prices.

The amount people can panic buy EV's is largely capped by the number of EV's available on hand.

Trade me has 3359 EV's and PHEV's listed (A bunch of those are misclassified non plug in hybrids, and a bunch of listing's will still be in daily use while listed).

Say the same again of new cars sitting in storage lots, which don't make it onto trade me (i.e. tesla inventory), and we are looking at a max uptick of 7,000 cars. @ 15000 km / year and 16 KWh / 100 km, this works out to 16.8 GWh. About 0.042% additional power use, Not enough to have any meaningful impact.

networkn:

It's already a problem. We are at or beyond our capacity multiple times a year, even a modest increase would be problematic.

If you are talking about generation capacity this is not true. We have not curtailed demand due to lack of generation since 9 Aug 2021 (and that event was a bit of a black swan event that was poorly handled)

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#3468935 11-Mar-2026 14:53

SaltyNZ:

To the extent that it already is, it's a problem we have control over, unlike fossil fuel prices. It can't be an excuse to not electrify. It should be a reason to build out capacity, and the fastest and the overwhelming global evidence says the cheapest and fastest way to do it is to build renewables, not LNG terminals.

Right, but because consecutive governments have lacked the foresight, will, or competence, we are faced with demand which outstrips supply. This isn't a case of buy more EV's and the capacity will follow, this is a case of doing that will cause households to be without power, or for us to be using unclean fuel sources. The price we pay for my first point, is having to take a more measured response to EV adoption.

Even at best case (and it's almost a pipe dream) our demand will outstrip our supply for the next 3 years. Not to mention the amount of money, and no-one is quite sure if that is being paid for my debt or revenue gathering (the dirty T word).

I am in the camp tht EV's are mostly better (though not as good as some zealots would have you believe).

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#3468936 11-Mar-2026 15:04

Scott3:

The amount people can panic buy EV's is largely capped by the number of EV's available on hand.

Trade me has 3359 EV's and PHEV's listed (A bunch of those are misclassified non plug in hybrids, and a bunch of listing's will still be in daily use while listed).

Say the same again of new cars sitting in storage lots, which don't make it onto trade me (i.e. tesla inventory), and we are looking at a max uptick of 7,000 cars. @ 15000 km / year and 16 KWh / 100 km, this works out to 16.8 GWh. About 0.042% additional power use, Not enough to have any meaningful impact.

You seem to be deliberately choosing to twist your assessment. It's not about overall demand, it's about peak demand, and according to an interview a few weeks ago, last year on CURRENT demand, during a mild winter, we were over our limit 5 times. We escaped blackouts because we are burning unclean fuel (and even then the first failsafe was triggered), which everyone froths at the mouth at. The commentator who I believe was a researcher independent of the power companies (sorry I can't recall his name), said that with even a *tiny* increased demand, we would have had significant power outages.

Also, not every EV on sale today is on trademe. With the recent introduction of significantly more affordable higher performance chinese EV's, companies like Fisker and the like are doing brisk business.

If you are talking about generation capacity this is not true. We have not curtailed demand due to lack of generation since 9 Aug 2021 (and that event was a bit of a black swan event that was poorly handled)

You and I are talking about different things potentially, mine relates to my comments above, and sorry, but if it's your word against his, I'm going to take his analysis and research as gospel.

His comments are certainly not the only things said on the same topic and predicting similar doom and gloom. You are literally the only person I have heard saying we are good on power at the moment. Retailers, lines company ceos etc are all warning of huge price increases, and some have gone as far as to predict that 2026 will be the year we have shutdowns.

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#3468938 11-Mar-2026 15:05

Scott3:

If you are talking about generation capacity this is not true. We have not curtailed demand due to lack of generation since 9 Aug 2021 (and that event was a bit of a black swan event that was poorly handled)

While Technically true, a lack of generation in Winter 2024 was shielded by a spot market pricing a huge chunk of load off line ( some permanently), .. $800/Mwh is not a long term solution for this issue....

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#3468971 11-Mar-2026 15:30

networkn:

You seem to be deliberately choosing to twist your assessment. It's not about overall demand, it's about peak demand, and according to an interview a few weeks ago, last year on CURRENT demand, during a mild winter, we were over our limit 5 times. We escaped blackouts because we are burning unclean fuel (and even then the first failsafe was triggered), which everyone froths at the mouth at. The commentator who I believe was a researcher independent of the power companies (sorry I can't recall his name), said that with even a *tiny* increased demand, we would have had significant power outages.

Also, not every EV on sale today is on trademe. With the recent introduction of significantly more affordable higher performance chinese EV's, companies like Fisker and the like are doing brisk business.

....

You and I are talking about different things potentially, mine relates to my comments above, and sorry, but if it's your word against his, I'm going to take his analysis and research as gospel.

His comments are certainly not the only things said on the same topic and predicting similar doom and gloom. You are literally the only person I have heard saying we are good on power at the moment. Retailers, lines company ceos etc are all warning of huge price increases, and some have gone as far as to predict that 2026 will be the year we have shutdowns.

Without knowing the interview you are referring to I can't really respond to it. I'm in the industry. We are in a very good spot for winter 2026 security of supply (pricing is a separate matter). Getting too off topic for a thread on fuel anyway.

On not every EV not being on trade me, I made an allowance of 3500 cars for this. I don't have actual numbers, but we don't have years of EV turnover sitting as stock on hand.

On Fisker, this was an American EV brand. I don't think this brand ever sold into NZ, and it went bankrupt in 2024.

On the topic of this thread, panic buying of a few thousand EV's isn't going to materially move the dial on petrol demand either.

wellygary:

While Technically true, a lack of generation in Winter 2024 was shielded by a spot market pricing a huge chunk of load off line ( some permanently), .. $800/Mwh is not a long term solution for this issue....

They hydrology situation of 2024 doesn't apply in 2026.

Should note high wholesale price's, and demand being curtailed in times of tight supply is the market operating as designed - Obviously some issues with this, I personally think the market is no longer fit for purpose, but the industry hasn't had to shed a single customer since 2021.

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#3468987 11-Mar-2026 15:52

Scott3:

They hydrology situation of 2024 doesn't apply in 2026.

Should note high wholesale price's, and demand being curtailed in times of tight supply is the market operating as designed - Obviously some issues with this, I personally think the market is no longer fit for purpose, but the industry hasn't had to shed a single customer since 2021.

Yeah, but "Hope it rains" is not really a great tagline to run your country on....

Handle9

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#3468989 11-Mar-2026 16:00

wellygary:

Scott3:

They hydrology situation of 2024 doesn't apply in 2026.

Should note high wholesale price's, and demand being curtailed in times of tight supply is the market operating as designed - Obviously some issues with this, I personally think the market is no longer fit for purpose, but the industry hasn't had to shed a single customer since 2021.

Yeah, but "Hope it rains" is not really a great tagline to run your country on....

Given the importance of farming to the New Zealand economy it’s pretty accurate.

wellygary

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#3468990 11-Mar-2026 16:03

Handle9:

Given the importance of farming to the New Zealand economy it’s pretty accurate.

Farms can probably survive a drought every few years... Pulp mills and other large industrial users not so much....

ezbee

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#3469016 11-Mar-2026 16:38

On the plus side.

We do have experience of work from home.
Should be way bigger saving than carless days ever was.

We do have the odd town with 'public transport'.
You can ride a non-polluting electric mass transit train, in the odd place.
Pity we did not invest in wider network, so big gaps for freight to inland ports and cities.

Who knew liquid fuels were potentially unreliable?

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#3469023 11-Mar-2026 16:51

ezbee:

Who knew liquid fuels were potentially unreliable?

It’s not like there have ever been carless days precipitated by unrest in the Middle East. Oh wait…

wellygary

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#3469024 11-Mar-2026 16:51

ezbee:

Who knew liquid fuels were potentially unreliable?

Iran burning down the global economy is not a sustainable path for them...

China is the worlds largest oil importer,.... the back channels will be seriously humming at the moment....

From an energy security POV oil and energy prices through the roof are not the handbrake on the US economy they once were ..
But from a mid term election POV having sky high gas prices is not a good policy to campaign on in deep red states ( which tend to be the ones with lots of pickup trucks and less public transit.....

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#3469025 11-Mar-2026 16:57

Iran aren’t looking for a sustainable path here they are looking to create a strategic situation that forces the US to end the war.

China has massive strategic petroleum reserves. They are better placed than most of the world to withstand this in the short term and are taking a quiet but active role supporting Iran.

Oil is still going to China from Iran, both through the straits in limited amounts and from Jask which is in the Gulf of Oman.

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#3469205 11-Mar-2026 22:19

networkn:

I really don't think either of those will occur. Night rate availability might increase and that would be a good thing. No doubt EVs are more attractive in the current climate but over three to five years the yearly sales growth average is probably not going to change that much.

I honestly think that is wildly over optimistic. Every conversation I've heard from experts discussing NZ's current generation capacity and likelyhood of power shortages, and impending power price increases indicate we are in for a rough time over the next 10 years.

And therein lies the reasoning for those same "experts" to promote installation of as much domestic distributed generation (i.e. solar) as possible. The synergy of PV and EVs is inarguable economically for the owners of these technologies and this advantage will only increase as V2H/V2G moves into the mainstream, all without placing additional load on existing grid generation and transmission. It's all about resilience on both a personal and nationwide basis.

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