Contact Energy has announced it will fire up part of an asbestos-plagued power station in response to fears over a possible electricity crisis this winter.
There are fears that New Zealand may be facing a power crisis this winter with storage levels in the southern hydro lakes now at their lowest point since 1992.
Latest figures show lake levels are at around 58% of full capacity while energy demand is higher than at the same time last year.
The gas-fired New Plymouth power station was mothballed in December 2007 after the discovery of asbestos, but the low hydro lake storage levels have forced Contact to recommission one of the plant's 100 megawatt generators by as early as June.
The government has welcomed the move.
Energy Minister David Parker had warned earlier that unless levels in the hydro catchments increase over the next few weeks, contingency measures may be introduced to try to prevent an energy crisis.
"Although the east coast drought is broken, it remains very dry in key southern hydro catchments. Unless we have some increased in-flows in the South Island hydro catchments in the next three weeks, further conservation measures will have to be looked at," Parker said on Tuesday.
Last month, Parker rated a power crisis as having a 5% or less probability.
He says people should start now to find ways to save energy around their homes by turning off non-essential appliances.
Parker says work is continuing on the full range of measures that could be used if the next level of response is needed.
At the start of this month the Major Electricity Users' Group held a telephone conference to discuss measures to avoid winter blackouts.
At that time levels in both the North and South Island lakes were about two thirds of what they would normally be due to the long, dry summer.
A buy back scheme was proposed whereby businesses would be paid to reduce their electricity use in the event of a power shortage.
However, Transpower says power cuts are very unlikely.
Transpower CEO Patrick Strange says if the dry period continues one of the measures they would look at is a conservation campaign, but this is a little way off.
