Meridian Energy Limited

Infobox_Company
company_name = Meridian Energy Limited
company_
company_type = State-owned enterprise
company_slogan =
foundation = 1999
location = Wellington, New Zealand
key_people = Tim Lusk, Chief Executive
industry = Electricity generation and retail
num_employees =
revenue = $2,604m [http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/AboutUs/Reports/ Annual report 2008] ]
net_income = $129m [http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/AboutUs/Reports/ Annual report 2008] ]
homepage = [http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/ http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz]

Meridian Energy Limited, a New Zealand-based company, generates and retails electricity. The company generates the largest proportion of New Zealand's electricity, providing for approximately 30% of the country's power needs [ [http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/MultipageDocumentTOC____36571.aspx MED Energy Data File 2008] ] . Greenpeace has judged it the only "green" electricity company in New Zealand. [ [http://www.cleanenergyguide.org.nz/default.asp Clean Energy Guide] (a Greenpeace website, Meridian-related citation valid as of November 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-26.)] It was also certified as the first carbon neutral energy company in New Zealand. [" [http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=EC136p7b.pdf New Zealand to be carbon neutral by 2020] " (from "Ecos 7", April-May 2007, Page 136. Retrieved 2007-11-26.)]

__TOC__In New Zealand the company owns and operates nine hydroelectric generating stations in the South Island: eight on the Waitaki River, and the country's largest hydroelectric station - Manapouri Power Station - on Lake Manapouri. Meridian sells power to approximately 183,000 customers [http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/AboutUs/Reports/ Annual report 2008] ] , primarily located in the South Island. The company operates major offices in Christchurch and Twizel, with a new head office in Wellington.

Meridian has started to build new generation-capacity in line with a commitment it made in 2004 to develop only renewable forms of power generation, such as hydroelectricity and wind-power. It has several wind-farm projects in progress. Meridian operates the Te Apiti Wind Farm which stands north of the Manawatu Gorge in the North Island - currently New Zealand's second largest. It also owns the Brooklyn Wind Turbine in Brooklyn, Wellington which it inherited in 1999 when the company was formed; the turbine was part of an earlier research project.

History

Meridian originated from the breakup of the Electricity Corporation of New Zealand (ECNZ) in 1999 as a result of the reforms of the New Zealand electricity market. Meridian's share of ECNZ became corporatised as a state-owned enterprise with its own board of directors and with two Ministerial shareholders: the Minister of Finance and the Minister of State Owned Enterprises.

* 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 South Island customer-base of Natural Gas Corporation (NGC), at the time New Zealand's largest electricity retailer. The purchase came towards the end of an exceptionally dry autumn. Low hydro-levels had driven the wholesale market spot prices to very high levels. NGC had purchased the customer-base when Canada's Trans Alta quit New Zealand. NGC re-branded itself as OnEnergy to escape the poor reputation of the "Trans Alta" brand. OnEnergy found itself with insufficient generation capacity to stand the high winter market prices, and had made the critical mistake of not purchasing any hedge contracts. It attempted to raise its retail prices, but its customers then flocked to other retailers. Finally, after suffering huge losses, NGC had perforce to quit the retail sector, selling its customer-base to two of the Government's companies: Meridian and Genesis Power Limited. At that point the New Zealand electricity market became further 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 [http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/aboutus/newsevents/news/meridian+announces+stop+to+project+aqua.htm] , 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 - New Zealand's Prime Minister, Helen Clark officially opened Te Apiti Wind Farm - Meridian's first wind-farm.

* 2 June 2005 - Meridian announced a proposal to develop a wind-farm west of Wellington. The "Project West Wind" proposal envisages up to 70 wind turbines with a total capacity of 210 MW, built across 55.8 square km on rural land near Makara at the south-western tip of the North Island. A local pressure group, the Makara Guardians, opposes the scheme. Successful application for resource consent for the project was announced on December 21 2005 [http://www.wellington.govt.nz/news/publicnotices/details/pdfs/westwind-decision.pdf] . The consent was subsequently appealed and upheld on May 15, 2007. Meridian announced it would begin construction of the wind farm in September 2007 and expects construction to take around two years.

* 30 November 2005 - Meridian completed the sale of its Australian operation, "Southern Hydro", for $A1.42 billion ($NZ1.52 billion) to Australian Gas Light Company. [http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3463327a13,00.html] . Meridian had steadily expanded and upgraded its assets in Australia since purchase, including commissioning a 91MW wind-farm. Nevertheless, 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. [ [http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/AboutUs/PowerStations/WhiteHill.htm Meridian Energy - White Hill wind farm] ]

Developments

Projects being developed by Meridian Energy include the following [http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/OurProjects/] .

See also

*Electricity sector in New Zealand

References

External links

* [http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/ Meridian Energy]
* [http://www.meridianbuilding.co.nz/ New Meridian headquarters building]
* [http://www.meridianannualreport.co.nz/ Meridian Annual Report 2007]
* [http://www.southernhydro.com.au Southern Hydro]
* [http://www.electricity.co.nz/choice.htm Competition in NZ Electricity]