BEC has welcomed the appointment of Dr Megan Woods to the role of Minister for Energy & Resources. The Prime Minister announced the full line up of ministers last week. "BEC has worked closely with the Minister since she took the role in 2018," noted Tina Schirr, BEC Executive Director.

We have been following pre-election energy announcements with interest. Our 2020 Energy Briefing calls for a holistic, long-term approach to developing an energy strategy.

As WEC Secretary General and CEO Dr. Angela Wilkinson noted recently the pandemic has triggered "the greatest financial capital reallocation in history". Next month's World Energy Week is an opportunity to look forward.

No system is perfect and ongoing development is something for which we all need to take responsibility. The 2020 Energy Briefing is designed to highlight key issues from across the energy sector, as identified by our members. We seek to collaboratively and constructively address how rules, incentives and markets can best be harnessed to shape evidence-based policy informed by our scenario modelling.

The strong outcomes we have delivered this year have been based on your input and the input of other leading industry partners. The involvement of experts from across the energy sector, both the private and public sectors, and academia is unique and important to us as we seek to understand and shape New Zealand’s energy policies. Our highlights of the past year can be found in this review.

New Zealand has the potential to be a world leader in innovative clean energy.

How can we emerge from COVID-19 more resilient and continue to accelerate a successful global energy transition? We would like to once again thank everyone who participated in our two COVID-19 surveys issued at the end of March. We are delighted to share initial thinking on four different, plausible scenarios that have been preliminarily identified as most relevant and challenging to our community.

In light of the current COVID-19 situation, the Government is looking to us for advice on the economic effects of the outbreak and on what can be done to better support businesses. On top of the announced package, we are seeking your input on what additional policies could support energy businesses and the wider New Zealand economy.

Today, the Minister of Energy and Resources Hon Dr Megan Woods addressed a full room at our annual BEC breakfast at NZX Limited in Wellington. The Minister looked back on 2019 and outlined her energy objectives for 2020. Part of the agenda will be the development of a hydrogen roadmap for New Zealand.

Merry Christmas from the BusinessNZ Energy Council (BEC) team, David, Debbie and Tina. Have a wonderful holiday and a Happy New Year. Thanks for reading our newsletter, we hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we’ve enjoyed writing it. Find our last energy sector update for the year below. We’ll be back with our next update in February 2020.