Energy Trusts New Zealand reposted this
It was a privilege to present the findings of our study into the productivity performance of local electricity lines companies at last week's Energy Trusts New Zealand Autumn conference. Together with my colleague Diego Villalobos Alberú, we explored the role of the Commerce Commission in placing scrutiny on the performance of lines companies, and the ways in which that aligns with the role of Trustees. We emphasised the importance of our relationship with Energy Trusts of New Zealand and its members, who bring hugely valuable perspectives to our work. Here's two of the headline messages we shared from our study: 🔑 The key message: measured productivity has been in long term decline, although somewhat stabilising in the last ten years. Prices for electricity distribution (averaged across New Zealand) could be around 20% lower if these companies’ measured productivity today was at the same level as in 2008. 🔑 The key challenges: improving both the measurement of productivity and also the actual productivity performance of the industry. For example, improvement in measurement might require a broader definition of outputs, as this work might be missing some areas of increased outputs from the distribution companies like improved safety for workers and the community. You can view the study here: https://lnkd.in/gpMjHCwW
Thanks for sharing, Tim. I'm wondering whether you've considered how key message 1 reconciles with the TFP performance of the wider NZ economy over the study period, and particularly over 2008-2014 where most of the decline in distribution TFP apparently takes place? Have distributors done better or worse than the average NZ firm over the same timeframe? After all, raising productivity is an economy-wide challenge for New Zealand.
Energy accounting within mutual framework agreements for risk, cost, production & data sharing could resolve some of the issues Marcus Saul Elisabeth Ann Holland Hemi Edwards
Awesome work Tim. Great read
Director at NETWORK WAITAKI LIMITED
7moI hope you pointed out to the good people at ETNZ the difficulties of actually defining and measuring what good performance from a lines business looks like. To be fair to the authors they noted this. The results should be taken with a grain of salt because this is a very important topic and given I sit on several network boards one that I am very interested in. Please focus on trying to work with the sector to get a better view and information set to do this properly rather than spreading views that will drive the wrong actions. Disappointing but sadly entirely predictable from our energy regulators.