NZ Politics

Most of NZ's power is renewable (majority hydro, quite a lot of wind, and increasing amounts of solar) but in the 90s the neo-libs in the tory party did a market restructure that results in the spot price for all electricity being set by the most expensive power currently being generated.

In times of low generation from any of the renewables (droughts, weather, shenanigans) that has meant gas/coal plants temporarily spin up and then all of the generators get paid the big bucks because that power is pricey.

Over time we've struggled to keep up with electrical demand, lots of reasons. Governments not investing in domestic solar enough doesn't help, challenges finding places to build more dams (none built in years now) which has meant most new generation up until recent solar developments has been wind only.

This is coupled with a foreign aluminium smelter holding an entire hydro dam to ransom for incredibly cheap power sucking up a chunk of generating capacity that might be better utilised elsewhere as no major party wants to be the one responsible for that smelter pulling out of a small region costing it quite a few jobs.

Now because we aren't getting as much snow on the Southern Alps as we used to we are having more times where the hydro generation down there isn't going full noise, and more times where the temporary plants are spun up which puts our spot prices up quite high - this has seen some timber mills completely shut down as their electricity costs are so high and data centres are under the same pressures.

(that's my potted history / economics explainer)