Traffic cones pushing up power prices – ENA

The escalating cost of temporary traffic management (TTM) faced by electricity networks is extraordinary, says the Electricity Networks Aotearoa (ENA).

A report commissioned by the ENA has analysed the cost of working in the road corridor for lines companies and shows that the cost of temporary traffic management per day has increased by about 208% from 2019 to 2024.

The report forecasts the average daily cost for temporary traffic management is expected to rise from $785 in 2019 to $2947 in 2026  – an increase of about 275% over the period, says the ENA.

Costs for temporary traffic management have been rising at an alarming rate, says ENA chief executive Tracey Kai.

“If nothing changes, costs will keep soaring – and every cost that lines companies face flows through to consumer power bills,” she says.

“Most of the time, costs are essential, like maintaining all the poles and wires and futureproofing to ensure our electricity infrastructure is resilient to things like floods and storms.

“However, some of the costs imposed on lines companies are unnecessarily high due to outdated rules.,” says Kai.

“These added expenses make running lines companies more expensive, and ultimately, drive up power prices for consumers.”

ENA welcomes recent changes the government is making to temporary traffic management which require contractors to adopt a ‘risk-based approach’.

“This report gives us a national benchmark for the cost that lines companies pay for temporary traffic management when working in the road corridor<’ says the ENA which plans to repeat the report in 18-24 months to assess how the new approach to temporary traffic management is tracking.

If costs continue to rise during this period, ENA will seek to work with the Government to maintain safety standards and push for further changes to the system.

“Ways to reduce the cost of power need to be a key focus for the entire energy sector,” says Kai.

“We can’t pretend that inflation and the cost of doing business have not gone up rapidly. “Everyone’s feeling the pinch and power price increases from April this year make fixing some of our regulations even more pressing,” she says.

“We need to find cost savings to keep the price of power down for everyone.”

The report was undertaken by Beca and it assessed the project costs of 17 lines companies during the last five years.

ENA represents all 29 lines companies that operate the poles and wires delivering electricity to every region across New Zealand.