Keeping gas in the energy mix

The Commerce Commission has reset the price and quality standards for Aotearoa New Zealand’s gas network for the five years from 1 October 2026 to 30 September 2031*.

This reset is important because it comes at a time of uncertainty about the supply of domestic natural gas, and the role of gas in the overall energy mix as the country decarbonises to meet its net-zero by 2050 commitments. 

It needed to consider how to support the best customer outcomes all the way through to 2031, and beyond.

In its announcement the Commerce Commission has supported the ongoing need for gas in Aotearoa New Zealand’s energy mix for at least the next 20 years.

It has decided that gas networks should:

• Continue to invest in their network assets and supporting operations to provide safe and resilient gas for existing customers while also enabling new customers to connect. That includes allowing networks to spend more on making the networks more resilient to the impacts of climate change.
• Continue to invest in renewable gas alternatives to natural gas – such as biomethane.
• Recover the cost of some of their network assets more quickly, which supports ongoing investment.

It also recognised that customers may choose to switch away from gas faster than expected at the time prices were reset, so it has introduced measures which are triggered if demand rises or falls more than 15%, sharing half of the increased costs or savings with customers.

Read the Commerce Commission’s full decision HERE

What this means for our customers

This reset means that our customers can be confident that we’ll continue to deliver safe and reliable gas to them. We plan that work through our Gas Asset Management Plan, which provides our roadmap for successfully transitioning from natural gas long-term, as part of the overall energy transition.

We plan to transition residential and commercial customers to biomethane, and work closely with industrial customers to assess decarbonisation pathways for their operations (whether electrification, biomethane, biomass, or a combination of solutions).

Find out more

Read about the development of biomethane

Read about our ten-year Gas Asset Management Plan

* Because customers can’t choose their gas network company in the same way they can choose their retailer, the Commerce Commission regulates how much networks can charge their customers and how reliable their service needs to be to ensure that customers are getting a fair service at a fair price.