Te Pāti Māori is putting ownership at the centre of the country’s energy debate, unveiling a $1 billion plan designed to help whānau, hapū, iwi and communities own the infrastructure generating Aotearoa’s electricity.
Its new Energy Sovereignty policy would establish a $1 billion Energy Sovereignty Fund, develop a long-term National Energy Plan, strengthen regulation of excessive prices and profits, and create mechanisms to ensure households and communities are fairly paid for electricity they generate and store.
The party is setting 2035 as its target for Energy Sovereignty, arguing New Zealand’s transition towards renewable electricity should also transform who owns energy assets and who receives the financial benefits.
Co-leader Rawiri Waititi says increasing electricity generation alone does not answer the bigger question of who will ultimately own the new infrastructure.
For Te Pāti Māori, changing from fossil fuels to renewable generation while leaving ownership and profits concentrated in existing hands would change the technology without fundamentally changing the economic structure.
$1 billion fund for community ownership
The centrepiece of the policy is the proposed $1 billion Energy Sovereignty Fund.
Te Pāti Māori says the fund would support Māori and community ownership of energy assets, potentially allowing more whānau, marae, hapū, iwi and communities to participate directly in electricity generation and storage.
That could include technologies such as solar generation and battery storage alongside larger community and iwi-owned renewable projects.
The distinction is important.
A household with solar panels can reduce the amount of electricity it purchases from the grid.
But an energy sovereignty model goes further by asking whether communities can own generation assets, store electricity and receive an economic return from energy they supply.
The party summarises that philosophy around three ideas — cutting power costs, building generation and expanding ownership.
Renewable electricity is already surging
The policy arrives while New Zealand is experiencing extraordinarily high renewable electricity generation.
Latest MBIE figures show renewables supplied 92 percent of New Zealand’s electricity during the June 2026 quarter, the third consecutive quarter above 90 percent and the highest renewable share recorded for a June quarter.
Solar generation increased 56.2 percent compared with the June 2025 quarter, reaching a record 242 gigawatt-hours for a June quarter.
For the first time on record, New Zealand also generated more electricity from solar than coal over the preceding 12 months.
Those numbers demonstrate that the renewable transition is already accelerating.
Te Pāti Māori is arguing the next debate should therefore be about who participates economically in that transition.
Marae generating and storing their own power
Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer is framing the policy around preventing renewable energy from becoming another extractive economy.
The party wants to see whānau generating electricity, marae storing it, iwi owning generation assets and Māori businesses participating in the construction and operation of the infrastructure.
For marae, greater energy independence could have implications extending well beyond electricity bills.
Marae frequently become important community hubs during civil defence emergencies.
Local solar generation combined with battery storage could potentially provide greater resilience when severe weather, natural disasters or network failures interrupt conventional electricity supplies.
For remote and rural Māori communities, distributed generation could also become part of wider conversations about infrastructure resilience and energy security.
Getting paid fairly for electricity
Another significant element of the policy is the proposal to establish fair value for electricity generated and stored by households and communities.
As rooftop solar and battery technology becomes more common, the relationship between electricity consumers and the national grid is changing.
A household can increasingly become both a customer and a small electricity producer.
Te Pāti Māori wants a system where people generating electricity are properly compensated for the power and storage capacity they provide.
The detail would matter considerably, including how fair value was calculated, who ultimately paid for it and how additional costs were distributed across the wider electricity system.
But the policy places household and community generation firmly into the wider debate about New Zealand’s future electricity market.
Taking aim at prices and profits
The party also wants regulators to receive stronger powers to intervene against what it considers excessive electricity pricing and profits.
Electricity affordability has become an increasingly significant political issue as households face pressure across food, housing, transport and energy costs.
MBIE monitors residential electricity costs and published tariffs, while noting that changes in average electricity costs can reflect factors including fixed daily charges and changing consumption levels.
Te Pāti Māori has previously called for stronger intervention in the electricity market and criticised the Government’s energy strategy, including its approach to liquefied natural gas.
The new policy expands that argument from regulation into ownership.
Whenua, wai and the renewable transition
For Māori, renewable energy development also carries another dimension.
Hydroelectricity, geothermal generation, transmission infrastructure, wind farms and solar developments all interact in different ways with whenua, wai and natural resources.
Ngarewa-Packer argues Māori communities have seen resources generate wealth elsewhere for generations and says the transition to renewable energy should not repeat that history under a different environmental label.
That raises questions extending beyond electricity.
If renewable infrastructure is built on or around Māori resources, what role should mana whenua have in its development?
Who owns the asset?
Who receives the revenue?
Who carries the environmental consequences?
And how much of the long-term economic benefit remains within the rohe?
Te Pāti Māori’s answer is to place ownership alongside environmental sustainability.
Energy sovereignty versus energy security
New Zealand’s broader energy debate has largely focused on security of supply, affordability and increasing generation.
The Government has also been developing reforms around dry-year electricity security and strengthening the regulatory framework governing the electricity system.
Te Pāti Māori is adding another concept to that debate — sovereignty.
Energy security asks whether the lights will stay on.
Energy affordability asks what households will pay.
Decarbonisation asks how the electricity is generated.
Energy sovereignty asks who owns it.
Those objectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but delivering all four would require significant investment and detailed decisions about the future structure of the electricity market.
A major economic proposition
The $1 billion fund would represent a substantial public investment, meaning Te Pāti Māori would face questions during the campaign about how the fund would operate, where the money would come from, what projects would qualify and what financial returns taxpayers could expect.
There would also need to be decisions about how funding was divided between whānau-scale projects, marae and community energy systems and larger iwi-owned developments.
But politically, the policy establishes a clear point of difference.
While much of the election energy debate is about how many additional megawatts Aotearoa needs to build, Te Pāti Māori wants voters to consider who will own those megawatts when construction is finished.
The country is already moving towards a more renewable electricity system.
The party’s argument is that decarbonisation should also become an opportunity for economic rangatiratanga.
Its message is straightforward:
Don’t just build the power. Own the power.
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