The Story of New Zealand's Internet

Transcription

Mike Roan – Manager Wholesale Markets, Meridian Energy

“Two frames that we really engage in. One is the New Zealand spot market for electricity and the systems we use are all electronic and we connect in real time to the system operator who runs a market that prices the sale of electricity every five minutes. So we run an internal system and Intranet and then we connect to the system operator via the Internet – as do all our competitors – and every five minutes, we are submitting offers for the sale of electricity to that company and the market clears and then we are paid based on those offers every five minutes. That sort of connectivity and real-time market operation is only possible because of the technology that has emerged over the last 10 years or so. If I go back, even 10-15 years, we had one supplier who set the price once-a-year – and here we are pricing it every five minutes and competing literally with the likes of Mighty River, TrustPower, Contact, Genesis for the right to sell electricity to wholesale customers and then ultimately retail it... every five minutes. It’s incredible how connectivity between people and us and our customers has changed due to the advent of technology and the systems that allow us to connect. It’s incredible.”