I'm a little surprised National hasn't gained more from ACT and NZF, but I'm sure it will over time - Seymour and Peters are giving little reason to vote for them.
From your link:-
ACT leader, David Seymour, believes the last government lost focus on affordable energy, which now has caused workers to pay the price.
“Our government was so focused on what type of generation we have and are we reaching our climate goals and all of these other objectives - we actually took our eye off the ball for secure and affordable energy, and the real human cost of that is jobs,” He said.
Code for "Screw the planet, we should be burning more coal and gas!".
Libertarian policies are what got us into this mess, so surely they will get us out again?
New Zealand electricity market
Until 1987, New Zealand had a centrally run system of providers of generation, transmission, distribution, and retailing. Reform has since led to the separation of the monopoly elements from the contestable elements to create competitive markets in energy retailing and generation...
Since about 2000, the market is split as follows: regulation, administration, generation, market clearing, transmission, distribution, metering and retail... Trade takes place at more than 200 pricing nodes across New Zealand... The market uses a locational marginal pricing auction which takes generators' offers and retailers' bids, and computes final prices and quantities at each node. These auctions are held every half-hour for a total of 48 trading periods each day.
In addition to the core wholesale spot market there are two associated markets. A hedge market for CFD financial contracts is operated by the ASX Australian Stock Exchange, and an FTR market for Financial Transmission Rights is operated by Energy Market Services, a business unit of Transpower...
The owner of the national transmission grid is Transpower, a state-owned enterprise... Distribution of electricity from the grid exit points to the end consumers' premises is the responsibility of about 30 distributors... who have monopoly control of the lines services on their networks. Ownership of distributors is through trust-owned... and public companies.
There are four major generators: Contact Energy, Genesis Energy, Mercury Energy, Meridian Energy. These four together produce about 90% of New Zealand's electricity. Meridian Energy, Genesis Energy and Mercury Energy are 51% majority owned by the New Zealand government, while Contact is a 100% publicly traded company. An important feature of the New Zealand market is that all the major generators also own retailing arms.
If this sounds complicated don't worry, just remember that in economics the more moving parts the more efficient the market - which means lower prices for consumers. If we had stuck to
communism the old centrally run system, wholesale and retail power prices would be several times what they are now - honest!
The incredible efficiency of this 'free market' system that makes prices go up and down randomly 48 times each day is obvious. Instead of a centrally run system
with each sector coordinating to meet demand planning badly, we have 5 generation companies and over 10 retailers stealing customers from each other to maximize profits. This results in much less duplication of resources, far lower administration costs and a more stable supply with no price shocks - honest!
But more importantly, it regulates the market. With a bunch of companies competing purely on price without considering factors like hydro water levels etc., rather than
sharing information and coordinating actions to ensure consistent supply colluding to keep prices artificially high, the invisible hand of the market somehow senses those water levels and drives prices down to where they should be, without squeezing out smaller operators to create a virtual monopoly - honest!
I'm a Contact customer, and a member of the Hawkes Bay Power Consumers trust (which pays a dividend of ~NZ$150 per year). But I can switch suppliers at any time - like ~35,000 consumers do each month - with no physical effects (I'm still receiving the same power over the same lines). Choice is a wonderful thing - or so the cold-callers trying to cajole me into switching power companies tell me, only to run scared when I tell them I'm on pre-pay (someone who actually monitors their power usage to ensure they stick within their budget, rather just paying whatever the bill comes to each month? 'Click').
I don't know why you say Seymour is giving little reason to vote for ACT, after all he has the solution to the power crisis - more fossil fuels! That's one of the main platforms the government was elected on. And burning coal to keep recycling mills open makes perfect sense.
