Electricity Lines Tariff Struck for Coming Year

Wellington Electricity Media Release

26 February 2016

Electricity Lines Tariff Struck for Coming Year

Wellington Electricity Lines Limited (Wellington Electricity), the electricity lines company for the Wellington region, has today notified an average 4.15% increase in its lines charges that will take effect from 1 April 2016.

This increase affects around 40% of the total electricity bill, which is the portion of the bill related to lines services. If this is passed through by energy retailers, it would result in an increase of around 1.7% in a typical household bill.

This follows a reduction of 10% in lines charges last year.

Electricity lines charges are subject to Government regulation (Commerce Commission for price setting and the Electricity Authority for market behaviour) and this increase is within the guidelines of the regulator.

“The lines charge is made up not just of costs of running our own network around Wellington, but also the transmission costs of getting electricity from the place of generation to our network,” says Greg Skelton, Chief Executive of Wellington Electricity.

“Wellington Electricity has adjusted the portion of lines charges covering its local distribution network by inflation of 0.46%, which contributes a small portion of the overall average 4.15% increase, with the balance reflecting costs to us from other parties such as Transpower and other generators (such as distributed generation) who connect directly to us,” says Skelton.

“These price changes apply to the charges Wellington Electricity bills to energy retailers who may pass them on to consumers. Consumers should therefore check the information they receive from their energy retailer to understand how this will impact on their actual electricity bill,” says Skelton.

“Our pricing will usually vary from year-to-year depending on movements in inflation, regulatory price adjustments and other supplier costs that are passed through. We continually look at our requirements and undertake significant investment to keep the network at a high standard of performance,” he says.

Details of the individual tariff price increases are available on the Wellington Electricity website: www.welectricity.co.nz.

ENDS

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