Quick Bite: Global power demand is surging – why is NZ different?

Electricity demand worldwide is booming, but New Zealand’s numbers are surprisingly flat. Octopus energy's Margaret Cooney explains why, and what could flip the switch.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to a shares These podcast, Perhaps if you
can give us an idea of what you think the
demand is for electricity, I mean the likes of data
centers and you know, worldwide, not.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Just New Zealand. You know, it just seems like we
need more and more.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
But what sort of stats can you offer for that?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, so the global picture is quite interesting. So globally
we've traditionally grown energy electricity demand by about two and
a half percent per annum, but over the past year
that's really tipped up, so it's almost double that in
a year. AI. It's a combination of a few things,

(00:40):
so AI is definitely a driver, but also the cost
of solar and the access to that, particularly in emerging economies,
has driven you know, rapid electrification in India, and then
China is going gangbusters electrifying and you know, is really

(01:04):
an electro state now and a real pioneer of you know,
rapid deployment of renewables. And also they manufacture so much
of the of the products that go across the electricity
supply chain as well. So the global picture for electricity

(01:24):
is growth. The New Zealand picture is more complicated. So
you know, most listeners will have been aware that over
the past year we've had significant struggles in terms of
security of supply. But on top of that, we've had

(01:45):
really high prices since really about twenty eighteen they kicked up,
and as a result of that, you know, we've had
quite flat demand. So and even last year it declined
because we were asking large consumers to curtail their usage.

(02:07):
But I think we should be more optimistic about the
about what future the future, and you know that if
we can build enough generation to service the demand, then
you know, there we should be realizing a significant increase
in it. So we already know that there there's you know,

(02:30):
between half a gig and a gig depends who you
talk to. With the data centers sitting there to be
built before twenty thirty, so that's pretty soon. So when
you think if we've got that much data center load,
then in terms of the new renewables to match off,

(02:52):
we need you know, if it's GUO, they're all an
exact match, but if it's wind and solar, then we
need about you know, four times the capacity of whatever's
coming on to be built. So there's the opportunity to
realize those that growth from data centers. We will continue

(03:13):
to get some increase from the residential space, and that
will be driven by the rate of house builds. So
we see, you know, every house that gets built that
will edge consumption and the rate at which they electrified
their transport. So yeah, if you buy an EV that

(03:35):
will add kind of twenty to thirty percent more consumption
onto your household. So I think if we get the
clean car discount back that ages. Yeah, we saw that
that when that discount was in place. We did see
the rapid more rapid adoption of vb's, but that's really

(03:59):
plateaus recently, and I think also the economic climate impacts that.
And the other thing is we're also saying that many
households are quite cost constraint conscious, so actual residential consumption
on averages is pretty flat, but it's that new build

(04:20):
that's adding to the system as well. Investing involves the
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