New Zealand Energy Quarterly – March 2024
The New Zealand Energy Quarterly provides quarterly data and analysis on energy supply, demand, prices and associated greenhouse gas emissions. This edition was released in June 2024.
On this page
Main highlights for this quarter
- Natural gas net production decreased by 12% since March 2023, to 31.89 PJ. This is the lowest net production recorded since March 1985. Contributing factors to this were Pohokura field going offline for planned maintenance in March 2024 well as a continuing downwards trend in natural gas production.
- Reduced natural gas production had a direct impact on consumption with a 33% drop in non-energy use compared with March 2023, and a 31% decrease in energy use in the chemical sector. Driving this fall was Methanex, one of the largest users of gas in New Zealand reducing its production of methanol in response to less available gas supply.
- Greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation were 861 kt CO2-e, a 21.5% increase, compared with the previous March quarter. The increase was mostly driven by the increase in coal-fired generation.
- Renewable share of electricity generation remains high at 85.7% for the past quarter, equating to 9,044 GWh of net generation.
- Since March 2023, Solar and Wind electricity generation have increased by 51.2% and 43.4% respectively. The opening of Rangitaiki Solar Farm this quarter and the full commissioning of Turitea Wind farm in May 2023 contributed to the increased generation.
Read the summary for this quarter
New Zealand Energy Quarterly March 2024 summary
Read the media release for this quarter
Natural gas production continues to decline
Access the data
For more detailed data, see the relevant page:
In this section
March 2024 summary
Natural gas production continues to decline.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence(external link).
Last updated: 12 September 2024