New Zealand Energy Quarterly – December 2025

Main highlights for this quarter

• 96.4% of electricity generation came from renewables, up from 94.3% in the December 2024 quarter. This is the highest quarterly share on record.

• Driving this was an 8.0% increase in hydro generation due to favourable hydro conditions and continued increases in solar generation (up 70.4%) due to new utility-scale solar capacity commissioned over the past year.

• With higher electricity generation from renewables, natural gas-fired electricity generation fell to its lowest quarterly level since the March 1980 quarter.

• Quarterly emissions from electricity generation fell to the lowest level on record since records began in March 1990.

• Electricity consumption increased 6.5%, driven by increased demand in most sectors. An increased need for irrigation saw electricity use in the agricultural sector increased 14.2%.

• Electricity use in the industrial sector increased 12.2%. Electricity use by New Zealand Aluminium Smelters was relatively low in the December 2024 quarter following its demand response agreement being called on in winter 2024.

• Industrial gas consumption increased by 0.31 PJ (up 2.8%) on the December 2024 quarter to, with most of this increase coming from higher use in the Chemicals subsector. This subsector includes gas use by Methanex, which had idled their production facilities in 2024 to free up gas for electricity generation.

Read the summary for this quarter

New Zealand Energy Quarterly December 2025 summary

Read the media release for this quarter

Favourable hydro conditions see record high share of electricity generation from renewables

Access the data

For more detailed data, see the relevant page:

• Electricity statistics
• Oil statistics
• Gas statistics
• Coal statistics
• Energy prices
• Electricity cost and price monitoring
• Greenhouse gas emissions

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