The gas market is opaque relative to the electricity market, but recent major gas field outages have prompted moves to improve transparency. One of the first improvements is an initiative by the gas industry regulator, the Gas Industry Company, which
Are Higher Electricity Prices Here to Stay?
By Greg Sise, September 27, 2019
Spot prices surged late last year when there was a prolonged, unplanned outage at the Pohokura gas field offshore Taranaki. But they haven’t come back down to where they were prior to the gas outages. In this post we look at the reasons why and ask the question on everyone’s mind – will they remain high?
The three most important issues for the 2020s - #2, The Hedge Market
By Greg Sise, June 10, 2019
This is the second in a series of three posts on what I see as the most important issues for the electricity market for the 2020s. The first issue was disclosure in the gas market, which has as much impact on electricity as it has on gas, and is woefully inadequate. The second issue, and the topic of this post, is the electricity hedge market: how it is not working for new retail
The three most important issues for the 2020s - #1, Gas Disclosure
By Greg Sise, May 2, 2019
This is the first in a series of three posts on what I see as the most important issues for the electricity market, and by association the gas market, for the 2020s. This first post is actually a submission to the Gas Indsutry Company's recent consultation on information disclosure in the wholesale gas market. The GIC documents and all subsmissions can be found at
End of an Era in Exploration
By Greg Sise, April 18, 2018
It’s ironic that this month’s announcement that there will be no new offshore oil and gas exploration permits issued in New Zealand was titled “Planning for the future…”. This announcement was totally out of the blue and if there is a “plan” somewhere, it appears that no one outside of government knows what it is.
Issue 100 of the Electricity Industry's Best Kept Secret
By Greg Sise, July 19, 2017
The majority of direct and indirect participants in the electricity market, from generators and retailers through to large consumers, aren’t aware that there is an essential piece of market intelligence available free on this very web site. And this month we publish it for the 100th time.
What drives electricity prices?
By Greg Sise, March 6, 2017
What drives electricity prices? Demand? Fuel costs? Losses? Transmission constraints? Carbon costs? The cost of new generation? Inflows? Well they all have an impact to a certain degree. The time frames vary but the answer in the long run is surprising, especially given that we are currently running at over 80% renewable generation.
Energy Link’s January 2017 Price Path
By Greg Sise, December 22, 2016
This week we released our latest quarterly Price Path, a long term forecast of spot prices, to our subscribers. 2016 has indeed been an uneventful year on the spot market, a function of a warm winter and lots of rain for generation and for pastures. However, the last quarter delivered up some very significant news on the gas front.
Futures Efficiency and 100% Renewables at the OERC Symposium
By Greg Sise, November 17, 2016
The 10th annual Symposium of the Otago Energy Research Centre (OERC) was held in Dunedin on 10th and 11th November. I presented at the conference, and Fergus Bevin-McCrimmon gave a presentation of the results of his research on the efficiency of electricity futures markets. Energy Link was very pleased to sponsor the prize for the best student presentation, won by PhD candidate Paul Crane for his presentation titled “Helping Support Energy Management Systems at the University of Otago”.
Is the Electricity Futures Market Liquid?
By Greg Sise, October 13, 2016
This is the third and final post in a series which draws on research undertaken in collaboration with the Department of Accountancy and Finance at the University of Otago. In the first post, we looked at evidence for premia in electricity futures prices. In the second post we found some surprising drivers of premia observed in futures prices. In this post we look at liquidity in the futures market, how it has evolved, and what developments or events caused it to change.
Energy Trendz Monthly - September 2016, Issue 90
By Greg Sise, September 21, 2016
In a very quiet month, the index decreased 0.1 c/kWh to 7.9 c/kWh at Haywards, on a volume of only one CFD (hedge) contract.
Energy Link’s October 2016 Price Path
By Greg Sise, September 21, 2016
Yesterday we released our latest quarterly Price Path, a long term forecast of spot prices, to our subscribers. It was an uneventful quarter since publishing our last Price Path update in July, but this update included some significant revisions of probabilities on extreme scenarios, and a large section on the viability of the thermal fleet.By Greg Sise, 21 September 2016