Upcoming Event: “Competition for the market” versus New Zealand’s electricity market design
Event details
Date: Wednesday 15th July, 2026
Time: 7:30-8:30pm
Venue: online only
Zoom link: https://aut.zoom.us/j/
Abstract
‘Competition for the market’ occurs when a new technology, or a new player in a winner-takes-all game, appears to challenge the dominance of an existing firm or coalition of firms in the market for a good or service. It is distinct from competition within a market which is the subject of most elementary economics texts. In the case of electricity in New Zealand the competitive challenge comes from distributed renewables – solar, wind, geothermal and batteries – whose long-run marginal cost is below the prevailing market price, but whose entry to the market has been mostly foreclosed to date by an alliance between the incumbent gentailers and lines companies on one hand and the Government and regulatory agencies on the other.
The future market structure, and the level of retail electricity prices, will be determined by the extent to which the gentailers succeed or fail in trapping the new technologies within their prevailing high-price-high-profit market architecture. The seminar sketches the two possible outcomes and discusses whether a revival of the century-old model of electric power boards could facilitate genuine competition for the market in a decentralised industry.
About the speaker
Dr Geoff Bertram is a retired academic economist who has studied the electricity industry and its restructuring since the 1970s. He is currently Visiting Scholar in the History department at Victoria University of Wellington.
