Energy in New Zealand 2015 released

12 August 2015

Energy in New Zealand 2015 released

New energy records and trends are revealed in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s latest annual energy report. Energy in New Zealand 2015, released today, is MBIE’s annual round-up of the energy sector, highlighting key trends in energy supply, transformation, demand and price for the 2014 calendar year.

“2014 saw some interesting changes and trends,” says MBIE’s Manager of Energy & Building Trends Bryan Field.

“Renewable energy made up 39.5 per cent of New Zealand’s total primary energy supply, up 1.3 per cent from the previous year. This is the highest contribution on record and places New Zealand third on this measure internationally, after Iceland and Norway. This was due to strong growth in geothermal electricity generation in 2014.”

Also in 2014, electricity consumption returned to growth after three consecutive years of decline.

“Electricity consumption in 2014 rose by 1.2 per cent to 39,210 GWh. A large increase in consumption — up 14.5 per cent from 2013 — from the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector was responsible for the majority of this increase,” Mr Field says.

Energy in New Zealand 2015 also shows that the level of proven and probable (2P) remaining reserves of oil and gas reduced during 2014. The amount of 2P remaining reserves of oil as at 1 January 2015 was 115 million barrels, down 17 per cent from the same date the previous year.

The level of 2P remaining reserves of gas as at 1 January 2015 was 2,373 petajoules — down 10 per cent from the previous year.

“The biggest factor in the reduction in remaining reserves of oil and gas was production during the year,” Mr Field says.

“On the other hand, exploration activity in 2014 was high. All up, a total of 33 wells were drilled in 2014, 22 of which were exploration wells,” he added.

Over $2 billion NZD was spent on oil and gas exploration and development in 2014. Expenditure was up by 30.9 per cent from 2013 — the highest level of expenditure on record. The Energy in New Zealand 2015 report, and detailed data tables can be accessed here: http://www.med.govt.nz/sectors-industries/energy/energy-modelling/publications/energy-in-new-zealand

ENDS

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