Meridian originated from the break-up of the
Electricity Corporation of New Zealand (ECNZ) in 1999 as a result of the reforms of the
New Zealand Electricity Market. Meridian's share of ECNZ was
corporatised as a
state-owned enterprise with its own board of directors and with two Ministerial shareholders: the
Minister of Finance and the Minister of
State-Owned Enterprises. In 2013 it was partially privatised by the
fifth National Government of New Zealand. As part of reforms, local electricity companies were split into lines and retail and the retail portion sold off. Meridian initially acquired the retail base of
Northpower, Centralines, Scanpower, and Network Waitaki, and later acquired
Orion's retail base from NGC. • 2001 – Meridian purchased five mini hydro-power stations in Australia. These stations linked with dams used primarily for irrigation, and have a total generating capacity of 62
MW. • September 2001 – Meridian purchased the
South Island customer-base of Natural Gas Corporation (NGC), at the time
New Zealand's largest electricity retailer. The purchase came towards the end of an exceptionally dry autumn. Low hydro-levels had driven the wholesale market spot prices to very high levels. NGC had purchased the customer-base when Canada's
TransAlta quit New Zealand. NGC re-branded itself as
OnEnergy to escape the poor reputation of the "TransAlta" brand. OnEnergy found itself with insufficient generation capacity to stand the high winter market prices and had made the critical mistake of not purchasing any
hedge contracts. It attempted to raise its retail prices, but its customers then flocked to other retailers. Finally, after suffering huge losses, NGC had perforce to quit the retail sector, selling its customer-base to two of the Government's companies: Meridian and
Genesis Energy. At that point, the New Zealand
electricity market became further
vertically integrated, and many have come to believe that this adversely affected competition in the
retail electricity market. • April 2003 – Meridian extended its operations in Australia with the purchase of
Southern Hydro, increasing its Australian generating capacity by 540 MW. • Southern Hemisphere Winter 2003 – Low hydro inflows and storage levels again resulted in exceptional wholesale market spot prices. As a consequence, the retailers
TrustPower and
Freshstart abandoned market areas where they had no generation. This strengthened Meridian's dominance of the South Island customer-base. • 29 March 2004 – Meridian cancelled
Project Aqua, a controversial 524 MW power scheme for six dams and a man-made
canal on the Lower
Waitaki River in
North Otago. The scheme allegedly represented the last opportunity for large-scale hydroelectric development of this magnitude in New Zealand. Abandoning the venture cost Meridian NZ$38.7 million. – Meridian stopped the scheme because of uncertainty over rights to use the water, growing costs, and the difficulties and uncertainties with obtaining consents under the
Resource Management Act legislation. In July 2004, Meridian announced an independent audit of the abandoned scheme. • 9 December 2004 – then Prime Minister
Helen Clark officially opened the
Te Āpiti Wind Farm – Meridian's first wind farm. • 2 June 2005 – Meridian announced a proposal to develop a wind farm west of
Wellington,
Project West Wind with up to 70 wind turbines with a total capacity of 210 MW, built across 55.8 square km on rural land near
Mākara at the south-western tip of the
North Island. A local pressure group, the
Makara Guardians, opposed the scheme. Successful application for resource consent for the project was announced on 21 December 2005. The consent was subsequently appealed and upheld in May 2007. • 30 November 2005 – Meridian completed the sale of its Australian operation,
Southern Hydro, for A$1.42 billion (NZ$1.52 billion) to
Australian Gas Light Company. Meridian had steadily expanded and upgraded its assets in Australia since purchase, including commissioning a 91 MW wind-farm. The sale commanded a hefty premium, driven by new demand for renewable energy-generation because of mandatory Australian requirements that electricity retailers sell a proportion of renewable energy. • 8 June 2007 – The
White Hill Wind Farm is officially opened. • 29 April 2009 – Prime Minister
John Key officially turns on the first 15 turbines on the
West Wind wind farm. • 1 June 2011 – The sale of Meridian Energy's Tekapo A and Tekapo B hydroelectric power stations to
Genesis Energy took effect. The sale was part of a package of government reforms aimed at improving the electricity sector. • 30 September 2013 – 49 percent of shares in the company officially offered for sale at between $1.50 and $1.80 In May 2025, Meridian Energy entered an agreement to acquire the Flick retail electricity business from
Z Energy, along with Z Energy's electricity customers, for NZ$70 million. ==Power stations==