Photo: RNZThe government is being warned that tight electricity supply situations could become more frequent, especially on cold winter mornings and evenings. "These tight periods can last minutes or hours and are a particular challenge at times when our thermal generators are not already running to provide baseload electricity supply, when the wind drops, or when the weather is colder than forecast." MBIE promised Energy Minister Simeon Brown another briefing soon on the elevated risks of tight supply as it looked at trade-offs around cost, technology and sustainability in tackling it. "For example, large-scale domestic green hydrogen production as an input to sustainable aviation fuels would increase electricity demand very substantially (at a time when we are already needing to significantly increase electricity generation)." The briefing contains a forecast of a 70 percent rise in electricity demand by 2050.
