Power payout: $15-$375 for customers
Electricity customers throughout the wider Auckland region are in for a payment ranging from $15 to $375. Vector is passing on a $15 Transpower rebate to all of its customers but only those who are in the old Auckland Electric Power Board area are eligible for the payment.
Their stake is held by a publicly owned trust, Entrust, which pays out the bulk of its dividend from Vector to 336,000 consumers.
In the north and western part of the Vector area consumers and council owners sold their shares in the former Waitemata Electric Power
Board area to private companies during the electricity reforms of the early 1990s, meaning they no longer get annual dividends.
This means about 232,000 residential consumers and businesses in the northern area will get $15, Vector says.
“We will be passing this payment on to power companies who should then provide their customers with a credit on their power bill of $15 later this year,” the company says.
The $15 payment — known as a loss rental rebate — is what Transpower pays out from any surplus each year once the costs in the electricity wholesale market have been worked out.
Loss rental rebates may vary each year depending on the dynamics of the electricity market and last year were $30. In addition, last year’s payment covered a period of 15 months whereas this year’s payment was for a 12-month period.
Entrust owns 75.1 per cent of Vector, and says the $375 in dividend and Transpower rebate will be paid to eligible customers later this month.
The trust’s chairman, William Cairns, says the dividend will contribute more than $120 million to Auckland’s economy.
“A good portion of it will be spent in local neighbourhoods, with local businesses, which further benefits local communities.”
During the past 26 years Entrust has paid out more than $1.7 billion to those in the old AEPB area — Auckland, Manukau, northern Papakura and eastern Franklin. Last year the trust paid a $350 dividend.
Under an agreement with Vector, $10.4m a year is spent on undergrounding power lines, a commitment that has been criticised as too small. So far 108km of power lines have been buried.
Last month Vector declared a net profit after tax of $84m in the year to June 30, 2019 after the $46.6m impairment from its E-co Products Group, which trades as HRV.
That was down from the previous year’s profit of $149.8m which included a one-off tax gain of $16.7m.
Excluding the impairment, the company said its net profit of $130.6m was down slightly on the previous year.