Electricity Asset Management Plan 2019-2029
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Investment summary: Our investment summary table shows our expenditure forecast for the project or programme for the next 10 years in New Zealand dollars. The forecast annual expenditure is expressed in financial years and all amounts are shown in millions of dollars. 5.1 NETWORK DEVELOPMENT Auckland is the largest urban area in New Zealand. It is also one of the fastest growing cities in the world, and accounts for a substantial part of New Zealand’s economy with the largest GDP by region in New Zealand 15 - Auckland’s share is 37.5%. A safe, reliable, economically competitive and environmentally sustainable electricity network is a cornerstone of a strong and prosperous Auckland economy. At the same time, our customers’ preferences and expectations are changing. They want fewer carbon emissions, greater choice and real-time interaction. They also want a sharing, always-on connection, along with greater transparency, a personalised experience and opportunities to learn – through services more than products. To meet both our existing and our future customers’ needs, we are aligning our network planning approach to the Symphony model described in Section 1. We aim to be both more diverse and customer-centric. Our new approach promotes a lower cost, smarter, more decentralised but more connected network. One that enables customers’ DERs to actively participate in providing resilience and improving network asset use. Network development project proposals for the next 10 years that relate to the expansion and interconnection of the network take into account Auckland’s growth, suburban areas becoming denser and rural areas becoming more urban, as well as the need to improve resilience for more isolated rural communities. Needs Statements are included for all projects and programmes. Network development costs often need a long investment horizon, with much of the cost being carried by future generations. This is why we scrutinise our investments closely, so we can be sure our assets will serve our community throughout their lifetime while avoiding inter-generational inequity. Increasingly, this means designing (and valuing) distribution networks that are agile, flexible and modular. This allows them to respond to change as we navigate an era of uncertainty. Accordingly, our investment strategy places value on flexibility and the ability to switch options, and use the latest technology, along with data analytics and advanced operational practices. This will enable us to meet the challenge Auckland’s fast growth represents, and optimise outcomes for our customers. Auckland’s projected growth is based on the Future Urban Land Strategy laid out in the Auckland Unitary Plan. Under this plan, the network will need to expand into new greenfield areas (for example, Takanini and Wainui) and become denser in sparsely developed regions (for example, Whenuapai). These areas are currently supplied by low-capacity rural feeder lines, so, as they intensify to urban residential levels, investment in new zone substations will be needed, along with all the associated distribution infrastructure. To account for the possible high uptake of DERs (for example, solar, batteries and electric cars charging into and out of the network) all new zone substation investments are designed to be flexible. The first such new design zone substation is Hobsonville Point zone substation. This new substation design also means the sub-transmission network can be skinnier, as demand peaks are reduced either because of increasing local DER availability or the possibility of reducing peaks with the aid of BESS. In the following sections, we group our network development projects by geographic region. The aim here is to provide visibility of those areas where growth will overtake existing capacity and investment is needed. For all the projects described below we looked for the optimal solution before deciding on the investment choice (and continue to do so). Whether this is through the use of network or non-network solutions, or customers’ DERs, in all cases, we identify the solution that will deliver the best outcome for our customers.
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15 Refer to the Stats NZ website, Regional Gross Domestic Product statistics page
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