Energy security the hot topic at Matariki event

1 July 2025

Energy security in New Zealand requires all parts of the energy system to understand the inter-dependencies between them, the 50 or so attendees at this year’s GasNZ Matariki networking function were told.

Opinions on the topic were shared via a three-person panel comprising: Angela Ogier, Genesis Energy's general manager for fuels strategy, Ben Gerritsen, GasNZ chair and general manager of customer and regulatory at Clarus, and pumped-hydro proponent Earl Bardsley.

Ogier said the electricity system can't provide energy security without it being backed up by the gas sector, or the coal sector.

"We need to have these things all joined up.

"If you don't understand what is happening in the liquids sector, and the coal sector and the gas sector, you can't pull together what should happen in the electricity sector."

Gerritsen said that while projections for domestic gas supplies were grim, gas would still play a critical part in providing energy security, particularly in dry years.

He noted that over the past two winters, gas normally used for producing methanol was instead used to support electricity generation.

"There is an option to have those arrangements persist through to the end of this decade," he said.

As the original proposer of the idea of pumped storage at Lake Onslow in Central Otago, hydrologist and academic Earl Bardsley was still an advocate for the shelved scheme to address long-term energy security.

While dismissed by the current government, it was still capable of being revived in the future, he said

The project had been pre-emptively rejected by the current government on the apparent basis of the cost analysis. Costs had been estimated, but the benefits had not, before the project was shut-down.

It was likely that the benefits, once fully calculated, would likely confirm the economic viability of the project, Bardsley said.

(Watch the recording of the panel discussion.)