Stress tests

Spot price risk disclosure, also called the stress testing regime, helps electricity market participants understand how exposed they are to sudden increases in wholesale electricity prices, using standard scenarios set by the Electricity Authority.

Disclosing participants must test their position each quarter and report the results to the independent registrar at NZX, which provides anonymised information back to the Authority.

The regime helps organisations manage risk more effectively, which supports a fair and well‑functioning electricity market. It aims to:

• build each disclosing participant's awareness of its exposure to spot price risk
• encourage each disclosing participants to take proactive and prudent steps to manage its exposure
• emphasise that each disclosing participant is responsible for the extent of its own exposure.

Financial stress is assessed based on exposure to:

• energy shortage events that may lead to periods of sustained high spot prices, and
• unexpected capacity shortfalls that may occur for short periods due to high demand.

This dashboard summarises participants' stress test results under these two simulated market stress scenarios, energy shortage and capacity shortfall.

You can find more information about the stress testing regime, including its purpose, how the scenarios work, and answers to common questions, on our stress testing regime information page.

You can download the dataset used below.