How energy infrastructure enables improvement in economic environmental social and cultural outcomes

I have previously outlined the compelling case to build a community and disaster resilient Wellington and save $100m per annum (here,) how to improve economic outcomes (here) environmental outcomes (here), social outcomes (here) and cultural outcomes (here). I have also outlined how infrastructure enable  improvement of economic, social, cultural and environment outcomes (here) and the more specifically how transport (here), water (here) and housing (here) infrastructure enables improvement in economic, environmental, social and cultural outcomes.

This thought piece outlines how energy infrastructure enables improvement in economic, environmental, social and cultural outcomes.

The objective is to lift all outcome scores to 80% by 2030. The current trends [1] indicate that capabilities and vulnerabilities are static or declining. The vulnerabilities are a lack of:

• confidence in finding a job. Economic

• helping in the community and feeling safe walking alone. Social

• engaging in cultural activities. Cultural

• confidence land is being used for optimal purpose. Environment

• confidence in Council and Parliament. Governance 

• connection with neighbours and preparation for a disaster. Disaster .

If the objective to lift all outcome scores to 80% by 2030 is achieved the benefits[2] will be that people will have more confidence in finding a job, feel safer, be more engaged in their community, have greater trust in Council and Parliament and be more connected with neighbours and prepared for a disaster.

The options to improve economic, environmental, social and cultural outcomes are:

• Survive: Improve economy through productivity; mitigate environmental impacts; improve delivery of social services being organised and targeted to people who need them, and improve cultural awareness

• Revive: Improve economy through knowledge orientated products and services; mitigate environmental impacts plus adaptation with ‘critical’ environment projects; improve delivery of social services being well-organised and easier for people to find and use; and improve cultural knowledge.

• Thrive: Improve economy though leveraging partnership between private and public leaders and the tertiary institutions; mitigate environmental impacts plus adaptation with ‘critical’ and ‘desirable’ environment projects; improve delivery of social services being led by the community, designed around people’s needs, and easy to access; and improve cultural application

Current state of Wellington energy

Wellington’s City operates a partly integrated and decentralized energy network. While electricity and gas are both available and coordinated regionally, the systems are managed by separate entities (e.g. Transpower and Wellington Electricity for electricity and Powerco for gas), and integration across energy types (e.g. with transport, housing, or local renewables) is limited. There is no single unified energy platform or system managing all sources and uses. Wellington City’s energy network meets moderate standards and is moderately optimised due to the following issues:

·         Ageing infrastructure – Parts of the network are old and increasingly vulnerable to failure.

·         Seismic risk – The city’s earthquake-prone geography poses ongoing resilience challenges.

·         Limited renewable integration – There’s low uptake of local solar or distributed generation.

·         Grid constraints – Some areas face capacity and reliability issues, especially during peak demand.

·         Decentralization without coordination – Growing decentralized systems lack strong integration, reducing efficiency.

·         Slow uptake of smart technologies – Delays in adopting smart grids and meters hinder optimisation and responsiveness.

Future state of Wellington Energy

Before considering whether to maintain, upgrade or replace infrastructure consideration needs to be given to the options at system level. The options in a predominantly urban area are to:

• Survive: Partly integrated network at moderate standards and moderately optimised

• Revive: Fully integrated network, at moderate standards with moderate optimisation

• Thrive: Fully integrated network at high standards with high optimisation

Each of these options would transparently show the costs and benefits from an economic, environmental, social and cultural perspective, as well as the costs from a water, transport, energy and communications perspective, for decision makers to identify the preferred option and way forward.

It is likely the preferred “public value” option is Thrive. To be affordable and achievable this will need to be phased starting with Survive for the first three years, then Revive for 3 years and then Thrive.

Therefore, a phased housing solution needs to be delivered by public and private sector leaders with more commercial finance, less regulation and enabling government investment

This requires the Government to reprioritise its existing investment programme to initiatives that deliver, in the words of the Minister of Finance, “better bang for buck” and better public value.

In my next thought piece, I will outline how communications infrastructure enables improvement in economic, environmental, social and cultural outcomes and how the choices could be phased over 10 years to Survive, then Revive and then Thrive.

[1]These trends are based on data gathered each October since 2019 through a community survey which asks questions of residents based on the wellbeing indicators in the Governments Living Standards Framework here, which have been aligned to the Governments resilience areas here. A score trending less than 60% is a vulnerability and a score trending greater than 60% is a capability. Here is the Wellington suburb survey data showing the trend lines https://newlandrg.weebly.com/result-2019-2024.html

[2] Using the wellbeing indicators in the Governments Living Standards Framework and attaching monetary values to, from The Treasurys; CBAx data set.