1. Pursuant to section 172I of the Electricity Act 1992,
I notify the amendment of the Electricity Governance Rules 2003 (“Rules”) under section 172H of the Electricity Act 1992.
2. The empowering provision for the electricity governance regulations in relation to which the amendment to the Rules is made is section 172D (1) (1) (a) of the Electricity Act 1992.
3. A brief description of the nature of the amendments is
as follows:
The proposed rule change will ensure that fully certified metering installations approved under the Metering and Reconciliation Information Agreement (MARIA) are deemed to comply with the Rules from 1 January 2006. This was the intention with the transition rules, but was inadvertently omitted.
4. Pursuant to section 172Z (4) of the Electricity Act 1992, the reasons for my decision to amend the Rules are that:
? the transition rules in part I of the Rules were intended to provide fully certified metering installations current immediately before the operational date would be deemed to be certified under the Rules. However, this rule was inadvertently omitted; and
? the proposed rule and amendment will ensure that participants do not have to recertify metering installations. The recertification of metering installations would be a major undertaking as approximately 100,000 domestic and 4,000 commercial/industrial metering installations are currently certified under MARIA. This would be costly and, at present, New Zealand does not have sufficient resources to complete the task.
5. This rule comes into force on 1 January 2006.
6. Copies of the Rules may be inspected free of charge or purchased from the Electricity Commission, Level Seven, ASB Bank Tower, 2 Hunter Street, Wellington. The Rules can also be viewed on the Electricity Commission web site:
http://www.electricitycommission.govt.nz/rulesandregs/rules
Dated at Wellington this 16th day of November 2005.
DAVID PARKER, Minister of Energy.