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I cant see the full article but I dont get why he is claiming the government didnt compare this vs solar. They clearly state in the MBIE report that solar was considered. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2026-02/2026%20Fact%20sheet%20-%20LNG%20Procurement.pdf
Am I misreading something?
I don't see an explicit mention of solar. The only bit that mentions renewables says;
"Other options, including renewable projects, were considered but not advanced due to a range of factors such as expected time to construct, feasibility of generating power reliably on the required scale, and effects on electricity market incentives."
Would be nice to see some details of these comparisons, and exactly what they mean by "effects on electricity market incentives". That sounds like a great place to hide a bunch of shady, short-termist reasoning ...
I mean it would be crazy to not consider solar right. I dont think the people preparing this report could ignore solar and instead only look at only wind and hydro. But I'm waiting for more details coming soon to hopefully put these questions to rest.
Because the people making decisions are not forward thinking enough, or think they know better than experts.
Or corruption.
That's really the only things I can think of.
Why not? It doesn't line the pockets of their donors.
This makes me furious that they can do this without a cost comparison of the other options on the market (renewable and non-renewable)
I could live with this if I knew they had compared all the options on the table showed their math and they gave some solid reasons for this choice; But they did none of this. At best commercial users will get their power price a bit more predictable. Residential users will be paying the “levy” so commercial users have more certainty about power cost.
I won’t start on how we are 100% reliant on offshore companies to supply LNG.
