The government’s plan to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) has raised questions about whether this is the best approach to strengthening New Zealand’s energy security, not least because the conflict in Iran highlights price volatility.

Our analysis suggests it is not. And it casts doubt on the logic of imposing a levy on electricity to fund an LNG terminal, which the government expects to be operational in 2028.

That’s because New Zealand also has a goal to achieve 100% renewable electricity generation by 2030, which means it would be unlikely to need gas in the long term.

We examined whether a fully renewable grid could meet growing electricity demand as the economy decarbonises, and whether the system would be sufficiently resilient during dry years – the conditions that led to an energy security crisis in 2024.

We found existing commitments to invest in renewable electricity generation and storage systems to buffer fluctuations in supply could meet, and even exceed, future demand.

As a first step, we modelled the expected annual electricity generation and investment information provided by the Electricity Authority about renewable projects expected to be ready in 2030.

We assumed new solar, wind and geothermal projects would provide generation profiles similar to the assets already on the grid in 2024. We then asked what would be expected from hydropower to stabilise the intermittent generation........

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