Source: BusinessNZ Energy Council
New Zealand cannot afford another election cycle of policy flip-flops when billions of dollars in energy investment and our economic competitiveness are at stake, the BusinessNZ Energy Council (BEC) says.
New Zealand urgently needs an enduring national energy strategy that treats energy as foundational economic infrastructure and provides the certainty to deliver affordable, secure and sustainable energy for decades to come.
The call for a national strategy is one of six priorities in BEC’s pre-election policy report, A Future Vision of New Zealand’s Energy Sector, developed through extensive consultation with stakeholders.
Together, the priorities (spanning policy certainty, reliable renewable supply, affordable electrification, investment coordination, major project decision-making and energy productivity) provide a pathway to more affordable and secure energy, stronger investment, greater productivity and lower emissions.
BusinessNZ Director of Advocacy Catherine Beard says energy policy can’t continue to change direction with each electoral cycle.
“Energy infrastructure is built over decades, not three-year political terms. Businesses making billion-dollar investment decisions need confidence that the rules of the game won’t fundamentally change every time there is a change of government.
“New Zealand has seen significant shifts in policy and political debate around oil and gas, electricity market structures and major energy infrastructure. These shifts create uncertainty.
“If investors don’t have the confidence to invest, projects are delayed or don’t happen at all. Ultimately, households and businesses pay the price through higher costs, reduced security and lost economic opportunities.”
Beard says New Zealand saw relatively low electricity prices and flat electricity demand from the early 2010s to 2018, which had helped keep electricity affordable.
Recent events, such as the fall off in gas production, the tightening of supply due to dry year (low hydro lakes) and more reliance on fossil fuels, and the need for new investment in lines (transmission costs), have all led to price increases not experienced for the previous decade.
Recent events in the Middle East and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, has also put pressure on our fuel costs, and highlighted the need to accelerate the shift to alternative fuels and electricity.
Beard says if we are going to get on top of this and make our energy system affordable, reliable and sustainable for consumers and businesses, we need to plan for that kind of future.
“We need to stop treating energy as a political football and start treating it as critical economic infrastructure. The sector needs an enduring plan that gives investors confidence in the country’s direction, while still allowing governments to make legitimate policy choices along the way.
“For a modern economy, abundant, reliable and affordable energy is not optional. It underpins practically everything else we want to achieve. A strategy that stays the course can support more productive businesses, higher-value manufacturing, better transport and housing, and a booming digital economy.”
Beard says consumers are already feeling the pressure across the energy system.
“Households and businesses are rightly concerned about rising energy costs. At the same time, enormous investment is needed in generation and networks to maintain the system, increase capacity and support greater electrification.
“There is significant new generation being built and planned, which is exactly the kind of investment New Zealand needs. The worst thing we could do now is undermine confidence by continually shifting the policy and regulatory environment.”
Beard says recommendations in the Future Vision Report will contribute to a better energy future for New Zealand. The priority recommendations are:
- To develop an enduring, national energy strategy that explicitly balances affordability, security and sustainability while enhancing productivity. If a comprehensive bipartisan energy strategy is not achievable look to depoliticise key energy issues through an independent entity.
- Strengthen market and regulatory settings for firming, flexibility, demand response and long-duration storage to ensure renewable energy remains secure and affordable.
- Review policy or market settings that may be unnecessarily increasing electricity costs or weakening the viability of electrification as a decarbonisation pathway.
- Improve coordination across generation, transmission, distribution and major demand through forward-looking infrastructure planning, coordination mechanisms and clearer long-term signals.
- Where government is making decisions on resource consenting, fast-track approvals or enabling infrastructure, existing assessments should appropriately consider additional energy supply, system flexibility, domestic economic benefits and the infrastructure costs associated with the project. It should complement rather than duplicate existing regulatory and cost-benefit processes for investment.
- Help to support energy efficiency that is cost-effective, while helping to track performance and embed energy management into normal business decision-making.
“The energy decisions we make today will shape our economy for decades. It’s time we treated energy as critical infrastructure and developed a long-term plan to support it,” Beard says.
The report, A Future Vision of New Zealand’s Energy Sector (https://bec.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/A-Future-Vision-of-New-Zealands-Energy-Sector.pdf), and summary document (https://bec.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Summary-A-Future-Vision-of-New-Zealands-Energy-Sector.pdf) are available to download and read on the BEC website (https://bec.org.nz/) now.
The BusinessNZ Energy Council (BEC) is a group of leading energy-sector business, government and research organisations taking a leading role in creating a sustainable, equitable and secure energy future. BEC is a brand of BusinessNZ and represents the World Energy Council in New Zealand..
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