Meridian Energy

Meridian Energy Limited

NZX: MEL ASX: MEZ
Industry	Electricity generation Electricity retailing
Predecessor	Electricity Corporation of New Zealand
Founded	16 December 1998; 25 years ago (1998-12-16)[1]
Headquarters	Wellington , New Zealand
Key people	Neal Barclay, Chief Executive
Revenue	NZ$2,319 million (2017)[2]
Operating income	NZ$653 million (2017)[2]
Net income	NZ$197 million (2017)[2]
Total assets	NZ$8,665 million (2017)[2]
Total equity	NZ$5,082 million (2017)[2]
Owner	New Zealand Government (51.02%, 2016)
Number of employees	959 (2017)[2]
Subsidiaries	Powershop
Website	www.meridianenergy.co.nz

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 the fourth largest retailer, with 14 percent of market share in terms of customers as of December 2015.^[3][4]

Meridian was one of three electricity companies formed from the break-up of the

Today, Meridian operates seven hydroelectric power stations and one wind farm in the South Island of New Zealand, and four wind farms in the North Island.

History

Meridian originated from the break-up of the

As part of reforms, local electricity companies were split into lines and retail and the retail portion sold off. Meridian initially acquired the retail base of Northpower, Centralines, Scanpower, and Network Waitaki, and later acquired Orion's retail base from NGC.

• 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
  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 Āpiti 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 Mākara 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.^[6]
• 30 November 2005 – Meridian completed the sale of its Australian operation, Southern Hydro, for A$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.^[7]
• 29 April 2009 – Prime Minister John Key officially turns on the first 15 turbines on the West Wind wind farm.^[8]
• 1 June 2011 – The sale of Meridian Energy's Tekapo A and Tekapo B hydroelectric power stations to
  Genesis Energy took effect. The sale was part of a package of government reforms aimed at improving the electricity sector.^[9]

• 30 September 2013 – 49 percent of shares in the company officially offered for sale at between $1.50 and $1.80[10]

Power stations

Hydro

Wind

Manapouri

Benmore

Aviemore

Ohau A

Ohau B

Ohau C

Waitaki

Te Apiti

Te Uku

West Wind

White Hill

class=notpageimage|

Location of power stations owned and operated by Meridian Energy in New Zealand.

Meridian Energy owns and operates seven hydroelectric power stations in the South Island – six on the Waitaki River and at Manapouri. It also owns and operates five wind farms in New Zealand, and a single turbine in Brooklyn, Wellington. In total, Meridian has a total installed capacity of 2,754 MW in New Zealand and 201 MW overseas.

Proposed

Projects being developed by Meridian Energy include the following.^[12]

Cancelled

Sustainability

Carbon Footprint

In 2006,

In 2008, Meridian issued and sold the first carbon credits issued and sold under the JI program of the Kyoto Protocol.^[citation needed]

In June 2008,

In 2015 Meridian began converting its business fleet to electric vehicles in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.[27] In early 2019 Meridian joined the EV100 initiative, it has committed to its light passenger vehicle business fleet becoming 100% electric by 2030.^[28] In August 2019 the company won the Deloitte Energy Award for a Low Carbon Initiative for its work on electric business fleet conversion.^[29]

Kākāpō Recovery Programme

Meridian Energy are National Partners of the Department of Conservation Kākāpō Recovery Programme since 2016. Kākāpō are an endangered New Zealand native parrot. The involvement helps fund research and initiatives relating to genetics, nutrition, disease management and finding new sites.^[30] Meridian staff are also involved through providing electrical support and volunteers to the remote pest-free islands the kākāpō are surviving on.

Project River Recovery

In 1990 Meridian established Project River Recovery,^[31] recognising the impacts of hydroelectric development from the 1930s to the 1980s on the Waitaki's braided rivers and wetlands.^[32] Project River Recovery's work is run by the New Zealand Department of Conservation and includes intensive weed control, predator control, construction of wetlands, and research and monitoring programmes. When Tekapo A and Tekapo B were sold to Genesis Energy in 2011, the electricity company joined the compensatory funding agreement.^[33]

Waiau River Recovery

In 1996 the Waiau Fisheries and Wildlife Enhancement Trust was formed to mitigate and improve the Waiau River from impacts by the Manapouri Hydro Station. The trust was established in partnership with the Waiau Working Party and ECNZ (now Meridian Energy Limited).^[34] The area covered is from Te Wae Wae Bay in the south to Lake Te Anau in the north. The work focuses on enhancing wetlands, waterways and riparian plantings.

Community

Wellington Wind Sculpture Walkway

Wellington, New Zealand's capital city, is well known for wind and the Meridian Energy Wind Sculpture walkway celebrates this. In 2007 the four sculptures won Best Public Art ^[35] and the final piece was opened in May 2010.^[36] The five sculptures are the 'Zephyrometer' by Phil Price, 'Urban Forest' by Leon van den Eijkel (in collaboration with Allan Brown), 'Akau Tangi' by Phil Dadson, 'Tower of Light' by Andrew Drummond and 'Pacific Grass' by Kon Dimopoulos. The sculptures are managed by the Wellington Sculpture Trust ^[37]

KidsCan

In 2013 Meridian became the principle partner of the KidsCan Charity.^[38] In April 2019 the company committed to a further three years of support, helping provide lunches, raincoats, shoes and warm clothing to kids in need.^[39]

Power Up Community Fund

Meridian supports communities near its generation assets through the Power Up fund.^[40] This includes promoting conservation, community and educational efforts in seven communities around New Zealand.

Controversy

In 2019, Meridian was found to mislead consumers when they implied the electricity they retailed was 100% renewable after a complaint was brought to the Advertising Standards Authority by rival retailer Electric Kiwi.^[41] Additionally, Meridian Energy was found to have pushed up power prices in December 2019 by unnecessarily spilling water from its South Island dams that could have been used for generation, according to a preliminary ruling from New Zealand's Electricity Authority.^[42]

Subsidiaries

• Dam Safety Intelligence Limited, a consultancy specialising in dam safety
• Powershop, an electricity retail broker.
• Flux Federation, an energy software platform.^[43]
• Arc Innovations (until 2014), a company specialising in electricity smart meters

See also

• Electricity sector in New Zealand
• New Zealand electricity market
• Project Crimson, a conservation programme sponsored by Meridian Energy
• KidsCan, a charity sponsored by Meridian Energy
• Kākāpō Recovery Programme
  , a conservation programme sponsored by Meridian Energy

References