Security and Reliability Council
The Security and Reliability Council provides us with independent advice on reliability of supply issues, the performance of the electricity system and the system operator.
On this page —
Role
Under section 20(2) of the Electricity Industry Act 2010, the function of the Security and Reliability Council (SRC) is to provide independent advice to the Electricity Authority on:
- the performance of the electricity system and the system operator; and
- reliability of supply issues.
The SRC fulfils its function by providing us with advice on:
- the system operator’s performance, including against its principal performance obligations, security of supply function and any other function of the system operator important to the performance of the electricity system and/or to reliability of supply
- system operations issues, including industry development needs and priorities relating to system operations
- security of supply issues, including system security assessments and security of supply forecasts
- reliability of supply issues, including planned and unplanned loss of supply and quality of supply issues
- any other matters that the Electricity Authority considers to be within the function of the SRC as set out in the Act.
Meeting papers
Here is a summary of SRC meetings, the papers considered and meeting minutes. Meeting minutes are not final until approved at a subsequent meeting. If any papers are unavailable when uploaded to this page, they will be added when available.
27 February 2025
At this meeting, the SRC welcomed the Authority Chair and Chief Executive for a discussion on the recently announced Level playing field measures consultation and received presentations from the Authority on the outlook for Winter 2025 and the Power Innovation Pathway initiative. They also received presentations from the grid owner, NEMA and distributors Northpower and Unison with perspectives on regional resilience.
Members
The SRC is currently made up of nine representatives appointed by the Electricity Authority to represent a broad array of expertise in the electricity industry.
Hon. Heather Roy
Chair - Independent Chair of Utilities Disputes Ltd
Hon. Heather Roy
Chair - Independent Chair of Utilities Disputes Ltd
Hon. Heather Roy is a professional director and business consultant. She chairs and sits on several boards including being Independent Chair of Utilities Disputes Ltd. She is director and principal of her Business Consultancy, TorquePoint.
Heather was a Member of Parliament from 2002-2011 and was Minister of Consumer Affairs from 2008-10.
She is a member of the Institute of Directors and winner of the Women on Boards ‘Inspirational Excellence Award’ 2017.
Heather is appointed for a three-year term from 1 April 2025.
André Botha
Chief Engineer, Vector
André Botha
Chief Engineer, Vector
André is one of New Zealand’s most experienced energy network engineers. As Vector’s Chief Engineer, he oversees Vector’s future network roadmap. Core to his role is driving implementation of Vector’s strategy to navigate the convergence of traditional network assets with new technology and digital solutions, designed to deliver affordable, reliable, safe, and resilient outcomes for customers. André’s ability to span ‘the old and new’ worlds of the energy sector and to provide customer centric engineering advice, means his expertise is highly valuable.
Prior to joining Vector in 2014, André held technical and executive leadership roles in a range of large energy businesses across South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. He brings more than 30 years’ experience in distribution and transmission across both electricity and gas.
André holds a B.Eng (Electrical) and a M.Eng (Electrical and Electronic) from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and a PGDipBus (Finance) from the University of Auckland.
Steve Duggan
Chief Financial Officer, Bluescope Steel
Steve Duggan
Chief Financial Officer, Bluescope Steel
Steve Duggan is a commercial leader with over 25 years' experience in global organisations. He has held leadership roles in a wide range of sectors, including (but not limited to) Finance, Strategy, Energy and Insurance, both in New Zealand and worldwide in Australia, Canada, Mongolia and the UK.
Steve has significant experience in Board reporting and governance and holds a number of executive directorships across New Zealand and the Pacific region. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce with First Class Honours from University of Otago.
Steve is appointed for a three-year term from 1 April 2025.
Chris Ewers
General Manager Wholesale, Meridian Energy
Chris Ewers
General Manager Wholesale, Meridian Energy
Chris Ewers is responsible for leading Meridian's wholesale, planning and generation control functions. He's also a member of the Electricity Engineers Association Executive.
Chris has worked all of his career in the electricity supply industry and brings a well-rounded set of experience and knowledge. He spent 26 years working in a wide range of operational roles, including generation control, financial and spot trading, transmission connection and coordination, outage management, governance, policy, various industry working and advisory groups, and process safety.
Prior to this, Chris worked for the Electricity Corporation of New Zealand at various thermal and hydro assets around the country.
While undertaking his BE (Hons) at the University of Canterbury, he worked summers at the Tasman Electric Power Board in a wide range of roles, including transformer refurbishment and network planning.
Karen Frew
General Manager, Electricity Powerco
Karen Frew
General Manager, Electricity Powerco
Karen Frew leads the Electricity Powerco team that is responsible for planning, designing, constructing, maintaining and operating their network 24/7.
Karen has an electrical engineering degree and a diploma in management. She’s a chartered engineer with over 25 years’ experience in electricity generation, distribution and large industrial sectors in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
She has held leadership roles in Powerco across engineering, asset management, strategy, system project delivery, regulation, and service delivery and operations.
Karen is appointed for a three-year term from 1 April 2024.
Ben Gerritsen
General Manager Customer and Regulation, Firstgas
Ben Gerritsen
General Manager Customer and Regulation, Firstgas
Ben Gerritsen leads the commercial management of Firstgas Group’s regulated gas and electricity networks, and has responsibility for policy and regulatory engagement, marketing, and external communications.
Ben is on the Board of GasNZ and the Bioenergy Association of New Zealand.
Ben has undergraduate degrees in law and economics and holds a Masters’ degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
Rebecca Larking
Independent member
Rebecca Larking
Independent member
Rebecca Larking used to be Chief Operations Officer at Genesis Energy, leading Genesis’ Generation and LPG Operations, Generation Development and Safety and Wellbeing. She has led Digital Transformation, Customer Operations, SME and Commercial and Industrial Customer engagement and partnerships in energy management and energy supply (LPG, Natural Gas and Electricity), with accountabilities for EBITDAF and delivery of products to market.
Rebecca is an experienced and holistic senior leader with 23 years’ experience across Iwi, community and partner engagement, strategy development and implementation, operations and infrastructure management, the electricity market, and environmental and water management.
Allan Miller
Director, Allan Miller Consulting and Co-founder and Director, ANSA®
Allan Miller
Director, Allan Miller Consulting and Co-founder and Director, ANSA®
Allan Miller is an executive Director of ANSA®, providing modelling and network planning insights for the growing connection of distributed energy resources, such as photovoltaic solar and electric vehicles, to low voltage distribution networks. ANSA® also models solar farms and commercial solar and industrial decarbonisation.
Allan's experience includes leadership and technical roles in the electricity and international high-tech industries. He was Director of the Electric Power Engineering Centre, University of Canterbury, from 2011 to 2017, where he established and led the GREEN Grid research programme. GREEN Grid research investigated the integration of distributed energy resources into low voltage distribution networks, and the integration of more variable renewable energy into the electricity system. During and after this time he was also a consulting engineer, providing independent expert advice to the electricity and technology industries.
Prior to that Allan was a Product Manager, followed by Managing Director, of Allied Telesis Labs Ltd, a product development centre for the Japanese computer networking company Allied Telesis. He has worked as a hardware and software engineer, as an analyst for Transpower during the establishment of the wholesale electricity market, and Western Power in Perth, Western Australia, where he led a demand response programme.
Allan holds a Ph.D. and B.E. Hons in electrical and electronic engineering.
David Binnie
General Manager, Low Carbon Energy
David Binnie
General Manager, Low Carbon Energy
David Binnie is an executive leader with international experience in the energy sector spanning 30 years and a strong commitment to drive the energy transition to low carbon. He started his career as an engineer for BP.
He has held numerous leadership roles in operations, commercial and strategy in New Zealand, the Middle East and Europe. In New Zealand he has held senior roles in government and Z Energy. He has also led global scale projects in hydrogen, commissioned NZ’s first bio-diesel business and now leads the transformation of Genesis Energy’s power production to biomass.
David is appointed for a three-year term from 1 April 2025.