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Speaker 1: Electricity demand is going to increase in this country by

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Speaker 1: twenty five percent over the next ten years. EVS, data centers,

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Speaker 1: commercial industrial uses, they will lead the charge. It's part

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Speaker 1: of the reason that Genesis is doing this four hundred

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Speaker 1: million dollar equity raise to fast track solar and batteries

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Speaker 1: to smooth out Huntley's supply during dry years. John Harbord

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Speaker 1: is the Major Electricity Users Group chair and joins us

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Speaker 1: this morning.

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Speaker 2: Hi John, good morning.

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Speaker 1: So you represent the likes of Fonterra Woolies and he's

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Speaker 1: in and still big users. How worried are they about

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Speaker 1: the security of electricity in this country?

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Speaker 2: Look, security of electricity is pretty critical. When you run

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Speaker 2: a manufacturing business and you need to be operating twenty

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Speaker 2: four to seven, you need to know that the electricity

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Speaker 2: is going to be there every minute of every day.

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Speaker 1: What's driving the increase in their demand? Are they expanding

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Speaker 1: or is it decarbonizational both.

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Speaker 2: It's an element of both. The other thing that's driving

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Speaker 2: electrification is obviously lack of domestic gas. So people who

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Speaker 2: are who can are trying to move away from using gas,

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Speaker 2: and one of the most attractive options obviously is electricity.

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Speaker 1: Does this announcement ease their minds.

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Speaker 2: Certainly, it's welcome. From a security of supply perspective. The

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Speaker 2: one thing that Genesis is leaning into very heavily is

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Speaker 2: dispatchable firming capacity, which is just a fancy way of

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Speaker 2: saying an ability to store electricity and then put it

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Speaker 2: into the system when you know, when it's we don't

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Speaker 2: have enough water in the hydro lakes and the sun

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Speaker 2: and the wind aren't cooperating, and that's the most important

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Speaker 2: electricity for the system. You know, that backup supply that's

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Speaker 2: there whenever you need it. So look, I think from

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Speaker 2: that perspective it's a really really good thing. It doesn't

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Speaker 2: do much of the short term for affordability issues, but

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Speaker 2: that's a whole other issue.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned that. I've found it an interesting yesterday.

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Speaker 1: Everyone's focusing on the solar but it's more of the

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Speaker 1: big battery at Huntley that will smooth the dry years

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Speaker 1: that's more important here, surely.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's from our perspective, that's really really critical. But

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Speaker 2: the solar aspect is really important as well. Now it

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Speaker 2: has to be put in the context that our other

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Speaker 2: large generators are also planning to build a lot of solar,

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Speaker 2: and the theory is that if you build a lot

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Speaker 2: of solar, you generate a lot more electricity during summer,

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Speaker 2: which is when solar electricity obviously is more effective. But

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Speaker 2: what that means is the hydrogenerators keep more of the

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Speaker 2: water in the lakes because they don't need to use it,

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Speaker 2: and then that's available during winter when we're often short.

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Speaker 1: Gotcha, John, Appreciate your time, John, Harvard, Major Electricity Users

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Speaker 1: Group cheer welcoming that announcement yesterday. For more from earlier

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Speaker 1: edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to news Talks it

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