Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Barbara Chapman, Chair of the Board of Genesis Energy. On behalf of my fellow directors, our Chief Executive and his team, and all of the Genesis employees around New Zealand, welcome to our 2024 annual shareholder meeting. We continue to hold this meeting in hybrid form, and thank those shareholders who have made the effort to be here in person today. It's great to be back in Wellington for the first time in a number of years. Our online streaming facility is available for those unable to attend in person, and we thank them for taking the time to be present virtually. Just some quick housekeeping for those here in the room before we start. The bathrooms and fire exits are out the door behind you. If we hear a fire alarm and a request to evacuate...
So there's some seats down here if you're looking for one. Please use the stairs and assemble on Gray Street opposite the hotel. For those joining us online, today's meeting is held via the Computershare Online Meetings platform. This enables you to read the company documents associated with the meeting and ask questions through the platform. For those online, if you have a question to submit during the meeting, please select the Q&A tab on the right half of your screen at any time. Type your question into the field and press Send. Your question will immediately be submitted to us. Should you require any assistance, you can type your query, and one of the Computershare team will assist you through the chat function. Alternatively, you can call Computershare on oh eight hundred six five zero zero three four.
Please note that while you can submit questions from now on, I will not address them until the relevant time in the meeting. Please also note that your questions may be moderated, or if we receive multiple questions on the same topic, they may be amalgamated. Due to time constraints, we may run out of time to answer all your questions. If that happens, we will answer them in due course via an email back to you. For those present in person during question time, simply please raise your hand and one of our attendants will bring a microphone to you. Two directors require re-election this year under the NZX director rotation rules, myself and James Moulder. You'll be able to vote on today's resolutions either in person or for those online using the Computershare platform.
I will refer to the instructions on how to vote when we get to that point in the meeting today. With us today are members of our executive team, including our Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Matthew Osborne, who will fulfill the role of Secretary for this year's meeting. Silvio Bruinsma is here representing our external auditor, Deloitte. Welcome, Silvio. Notice of meeting has been duly given to shareholders, and we have the required quorum. I now declare the 2024 a nnual shareholder meeting of Genesis Energy Limited officially open. Thank you for joining us here today. I will quickly run through the agenda for this afternoon. Firstly, I will provide a brief overview of the Board's key highlights for the year. Chief Executive, Malcolm Johns, will then provide you with a more detailed overview of the Company's performance and priorities.
There will then be an opportunity for you to ask questions of the Board and the executive arising from those two presentations. Finally, we will move to the formal business of today's meeting, and at that point, I will outline the process for the discussion and voting on the two resolutions in the agenda. Following voting, you will be provided with an opportunity to raise any items of general business that you may lawfully put to this meeting. If there are any additional discussion points that you feel haven't been covered in today's meeting, please reach out to our investor relations team at the email address investor.relations@genesisenergy.co.nz. To begin, let me introduce your board of directors. Hinerangi Raumati-Tuua. Hinerangi joined the Board in March twenty twenty-two. She's a member of the Audit and Risk Committee.
Hinerangi is Chair of Tainui Group Holdings and brings extensive governance experience, having chaired and served on Iwi boards and those in varied sectors, including water, fisheries, local government, Public Trust, and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. In addition to her strong commercial investment and corporate governance background, Hinerangi was named Māori Businesswoman Leader of the Year in 2016 and served on the Cullen Tax Working Group in 2019. This year, she won the Māori Leadership Finance Award at the Institute of Finance Professionals Awards. Thank you, Hinerangi. Warwick Hunt. Warwick joined the Board in October 2022. He is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee. Warwick brings over 30 years leadership and governance experience.
As a partner and then Managing Partner of PwC, New Zealand, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and UK, Warwick has worked across a range of sectors including energy, professional services, financial services, agribusiness, and aviation. He is Chair of the Bank of New Zealand and Executive Fellow of King's College London Business School. He's a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, and an Honorary Fellow of King's College London. Thanks, Warwick. Tim Miles. Tim joined our board in 2016, coming to us from his previous role as Chief Executive of Spark Digital. He is Chairman of the Human Resources and Remuneration Committee and a member of the Nominations Committee. Tim has had a long career in customer and technology-focused roles at the most senior levels, both in New Zealand and internationally. He's Chair of Forty South Limited and a Director of ASX-listed oOh!media Limited.
Tim has served as a director of companies in the fields of technology, finance, and property. Thanks, Tim. Paul Zealand. Paul joined our board in twenty sixteen. He's a member of the company's Human Resources and Remuneration Committee and Nominations Committee. Paul has over forty years' experience in the oil and gas sector, including senior executive and chief executive roles at Shell and Origin Energy. In particular, he brings strong expertise around health and safety and environmental management, and advice around operational risk and commercial management of complex assets. He is currently Chairman of Port of Nelson Limited and Channel Infrastructure Limited, and a Director of Lochard Energy. Thanks, Paul. Catherine Drayton. Catherine joined the Genesis Board in March twenty nineteen, and is Chair of the company's Audit and Risk Committee.
Kathryn is a former senior partner at PwC, specializing in mergers and acquisitions, culminating in her leading the insurance and advisory divisions in Central and Eastern Europe. Her extensive cross-sector governance experience includes multiple directorships across iwi organizations and the energy, healthcare, and infrastructure sectors. She's a former chair of the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation. She's currently Chair of Mint Innovation Limited and Connexa Limited, and a Director of IAG New Zealand Limited and Warren and Mahoney Limited. Catherine is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand. Thanks, Catherine. James Moulder. James joined the Board in 2018 and is a member of the company's Audit and Risk Committee. James has strong governance experience, having held a number of non-executive board and advisory board positions in the electricity and carbon industries.
He has previously held executive management positions at Mighty River Power, now known as Mercury. Ma'am, there's some seats down the front here, if you're brave enough to come down.
You're all right.
You're right down there? Okay. Prior to joining the Genesis Board, James advised the Singaporean government on the development of electricity hedging trading markets. More recently, he's been involved in the development of carbon and environmental markets in Asia. James's background advising the New Zealand electricity sector's regulatory bodies also strengthens our governance. Thanks very much, James. Behind me is an image of our board's skills matrix, a summary of the skills necessary for the company's success and an assessment of the skills held by directors. The matrix shows an excellent spread of expertise and secondary skills among our directors. This year, we enhanced the skills matrix to highlight climate change risk and opportunity management as a key skill, recognizing that understanding climate-related risks and opportunities, and how they may impact business outcomes in the near, medium, and long term, is key to good governance.
We are determined to be transparent about our opportunities, targets, strategy and progress, and also about our challenges, the impacts we have, and how we are addressing those. Our reporting strives to present a balanced view of how we create value in the short, medium, and long term. Our annual reporting suite now includes a fully integrated report in which environmental, social, and governance metrics are integrated with financial and performance updates, a climate statement, and a sustainable finance report. They can be found in the Investor Center on our website. Establishing a good working relationship with the company's Chief Executive is one of the Board's most important roles, and it's pleasing to see the progress Malcolm Johns has made in launching a new strategy, structuring an executive team to support its execution, and starting delivery of value-enhancing strategic objectives.
the Board looks forward to supporting the executive team into action, to action the strategy over the coming years, in particular, our 8 by '28 , the eight objectives we intend to deliver by FY 2028. Malcolm will speak more on these soon. A board must continually assess itself, and this year we had an external party undertake a robust review of our members' skills, experience, and our ability to work as a team for the benefit of the company. While there are always areas in which to improve, the results overall were extremely positive. Directors' remuneration was reviewed this year as part of the previously communicated biennial review cycle with the support of Korn Ferry. Directors' fees were last increased in 2021. No increase in the director fee pools have been sought this year.
Rather, the company has sought to achieve a modest increase in directors' fees through reallocating the current fees pools among the existing seven directors. As this reallocation of fees is within the envelope of the current fee pools, shareholder approval is not required. Revised directors' fees have been published through the Investor section on the Genesis website, together with a copy of the supporting Korn Ferry benchmark report. I am proud to lead a strong and capable board of directors, who provide their extensive experience and specialist skills for the benefit of the company, our stakeholders, the wider community, and you, our shareholders. Catherine, could you- Oh, I've got to drink. One moment.
Our results this year are compared against a year of record hydrology in FY 2023 and were affected by three major impacts: the loss of Unit 5 for seven months, the declining gas supply nationally, and low hydrology, especially in the South Island storage lakes. The impact of Unit 5's unplanned outage could have been more significant, if not for the expertise and commitment of the rest of the team that returned the unit to service four months earlier than anticipated, and I want to thank the Huntly team for their fantastic efforts in doing so. Lower than forecast national gas supply, coupled with lower hydro inflows, saw generation fuel costs rise by over NZD 100 million during FY 2024.
This meant FY 2024 EBITDA was NZD 407 million, down 22% on FY 2023, and net profit after tax was NZD 131 million, down 33%. As previously guided, the Board chose to pay a reset dividend of NZD 0.14 per share over the year as we transition Genesis towards maintaining sector-leading yields while increasing our capital program to deliver long-term earnings growth, and I'll speak more on this shortly. Looking ahead, our FY 2025 EBITDA is expected to increase to around NZD 460 million, subject to hydro inflows, plant availability, and any other unforeseen events. FY 2024 was a watershed year for Genesis with the launch of our Gen35 growth strategy. Gen35 is focused on three things: cost control, deploying capital to drive earnings growth, and maintaining our sector-leading yield. Gen35 capitalizes on Genesis' unique position in the sector.
We have a large customer base to help transition to electrification. We have the ability to expand our renewables generation fleet to increase our margin, and Huntly Power Station is front and center in our plans to derive value from energy security and flexibility in a high renewables grid. Huntly proved its worth once again this winter in providing security of supply when hydro lakes were low, wind did not arrive at the wind farms, and the gas supply declined markedly. We have moved quickly to start delivering Gen35. First up, we achieved final investment decision for the Lauriston Solar Farm. Construction is well underway, and the facility is on track to begin generation in December this year. The swift delivery of generation assets to the market is a tribute to how we've built development and delivery capability quickly within the Genesis team over the past year.
We've also secured our next solar site near Edgecumbe in the Bay of Plenty, while adding enough development opportunities to our pipeline to be confident of achieving our target of 500 MW of solar by FY 2028. We're delivering on the transformation of Huntly Power Station, a 1,200-MW grid connection located in the heart of New Zealand's growth region of Auckland, Hamilton, and Tauranga. The transformation began by reaching financial close on the first stage of the site's grid-scale battery project. The 100-MW battery is expected to be operational in the middle of 2026. It will play an important role in driving enhanced margin from our existing portfolio and accessing new revenue and margin from the market. We continue to advance displacing coal with biomass and expect to have more to say about this project later in FY 2025.
We're well into delivering our retail transformation, a journey towards a simplified, lower-cost model, while focusing on new value pools in demand-side flexibility and EVs. Our new approach will result in a reduction of around two hundred FTEs, so two hundred people, across FY 2024 and FY 2025. We thank our people for their professionalism in working through this difficult process with us. We advanced the delivery of our digital program this year, which consists of three key upgrade projects for our billing and CRM platform, our finance management platform, and our wholesale trading toolkit. the Board and executive are focused on managing delivery risk and ensuring these projects have the earnings impact that we seek. And our work this year also included starting to deploy productivity-enhancing technology like AI, and we'll have more to say on that over the coming year.
At Investor Day last November, we outlined a NZD 1.1 billion capital program to build renewables and drive earnings growth. We indicated we would aim to maintain a credit rating to debt-to-EBITDA ratio in a multiple between two and three over the long term. This would include dedicating the free cash flows from our share of the Kupe gas field to this program. The current unfavorable outcome at Kupe's KS-9 well means we may be at the upper end of our credit rating range while we deploy capital, moving back towards the middle of the range as earnings growth from new initiatives kick in. We remain committed to our triple B plus credit rating long term.
We indicated at Investor Day that we could build earnings using power purchase agreements, or PPAs, partnered capital at asset level with PPAs, and using our own capital on balance sheet. In the past year, Genesis' share price has not performed at the level of our competitors. We acknowledge that as we transition to a new setting of yield and growth, it will take time to build earnings and for our share price to follow. Genesis is in a transition within the energy transition, and we're focusing on the things we can deliver to grow shareholder value, such as setting our new strategy, good governance of key investment decisions, maintaining a strong and capable executive team, and upholding the reputation of Genesis. the Board carefully considers dividend policy to provide shareholders returns while balancing investment for long-term growth and maintaining an appropriate balance sheet setting.
The reset of the dividend to NZD 0.14 per share was an important decision for the Board, as we chose to direct increased free cash flows into new renewable generation to deliver Genesis' transition to an earnings growth outlook. While the outcome of the KS-9 well intervention has proven there is some gas there, there is a blockage in the well that is preventing that gas from flowing. The joint venture is reviewing options for further intervention, and we will remain engaged in that process. The KS-9 outcome reinforces the importance of transitioning Genesis under Gen35, and Genesis remains committed to delivering our strategic objectives. The next phase of this transition will occur over the next four years as we deliver Horizon Two of Gen35, our 8 by '28 program, targeted to lift earnings to the mid-500 million by FY 2028 and drive shareholder value.
Our business is nothing without the commitment of our people. FY 2024 saw a major restructure of the business and the introduction of a new strategy. A survey conducted after the restructure delivered an overall team engagement score of 81%, which is an outstanding result, considering the difficult period our people had just been through. Most agreed their work gave them a feeling of personal accomplishment, and that they would recommend Genesis as a great place to work. A focus on safety and wellness is key to this result. This year, we continued to see a significant reduction in injury severity, with the number of total lost and restricted days due to injury reduced by 42% compared to FY 2023. Our ongoing LPG Delivery Injury Reduction Program maintained its momentum with a 31% reduction in the LPG injury rate since the program launched in FY 2022.
Our Genesis Wellbeing Program continued its success with widespread use of resources in a portal called My Everyday Wellbeing. We're working towards an international standard for workplace health and safety systems. In conclusion, along with my fellow directors and our Genesis Energy team, I would like to thank you for your ongoing support of our company. FY 2024 has been a challenging year in what is a dynamic decade for the energy sector. The year's events have underlined a long-held view that a renewable transition must also deliver energy security and reliability. We will continue to engage constructively with regulators to help ensure a workable pathway for new renewable generation, while helping ensure security of electricity supply and affordability for our customers....
I have every confidence that your board, overseeing our strong executive team, will maintain the company's position as an essential and profitable part of New Zealand's energy future, while at the same time, living up to the company's purpose and vision. Finally, I do want to acknowledge the awards that Genesis has been recognized for in the past year across our wholesale, retail, and corporates segments. We're pleased that our integrated report that I mentioned earlier, was recognized as Best Overall at the 2023 Internal Annual Reports Awards. It's now my pleasure to invite your Chief Executive, Malcolm Johns, to address our shareholders. Welcome, Malcolm.
[Foreign language] , everyone. Thank you, Barbara, for providing an overview of some of the challenges and opportunities the company has navigated in what has been a demanding but rewarding year, in which we defended our earnings and delivered on strategy. While we were challenged by major unplanned outages in New Zealand's gas shortage, the big impact was Mother Nature failing to show up during winter 2024. The country experienced 30%, 30% less generation from major hydro and wind operators over the past winter. Despite these challenges, our generation portfolio showed its resilience. We delivered for our customers from our own generation assets, avoiding the volatile spot market. This meant we defended our earnings while also delivering on key strategic Horizon One of our Gen35 strategy was about getting the business future fit to return to growing earnings, and we delivered on that.
We have reshaped Genesis into six business units, realigned the executive team, and commenced a major repositioning of our retail business into a lighter touch, lower cost model. As part of this, we farewelled one hundred and thirty of what will ultimately be two hundred fewer staff in our retail business. I want to thank everybody for the professional way in which this was handled. In addition to strengthening our executive team, we have also built depth into our leadership bench with a more impactful senior leadership team, who are laser-focused on delivering cost control, our earnings enhancing capital program, and maintaining our sector leading yield position. I'd like to introduce the executive team to you now. Tracey Hickman has been on the Genesis executive for more than twelve years, and in the energy sector for three decades.
In FY twenty-four, Tracy was appointed Chief Wholesale Officer, overseeing our wholesale operations, electricity trading, and our fuels portfolio, as well as our renewables asset development team. She has also been a Chief Customer Officer, and prior to this, was Executive General Manager for Wholesale. Matthew Osborne has been with Genesis since 2018, and as our Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, is responsible for legal, regulatory, government relations, sustainability, community investment, communications, and company secretarial functions. Claire Walker joined the team last year as Chief People Officer. Claire is deeply experienced in people and culture. She understands how structures best serve strategy and how to build high-performing cultures. Steven England Hall joined us as our Chief Retail Officer. He is a market strategy specialist who understands value-creating brands, customer loyalty, proactive channel management, and high-value, low-cost customer service models.
Ed Hyde came on board as our Chief Transformation and Technology Officer. Ed has deep experience in introducing new technology platforms, data, and AI into businesses to drive productivity growth. This year, we farewelled our Chief Financial Officer, James Spence, and we are now looking forward to welcoming our new Chief Financial Officer, Julie Amey, in November. Julie joins us with a wealth of experience in both the energy sector and listed entities. We are grateful to Emma Ertl, who's with us here today, Emma, you can stand up, for taking on the role of interim CFO until Julie joins us. Emma is an excellent example of the strength in our senior leadership team. She will move on to a new but critical role of General Manager Portfolio, where she will lead our work on growing group gross margin over the next four years.
As Barbara mentioned, the launch of our Gen35 strategy kickstarted Genesis's transition to a growth stock, with sector yielding, sector-leading yields, focusing on deploying capital to return our earnings outlook to growth. For New Zealand to reach net zero by 2050, 60% of New Zealand's energy needs to come from electricity, up from 38% today. At least 95% of that electricity needs to be renewable, up from 80% today, and it will need to be practically available 100% of the time. This includes winter peaks, periods of low wind, and New Zealand's regular dry years. This is the first principle of our operating context for the next 25 years. 60, 95, 100 are numbers that we will repeat regularly.
The challenging elements of the 60-95-100 scenario would be advancing demand-side transition to electrification or electrifying our homes and businesses, while maintaining 100% energy security as we do so. If we look back over the past decade, we can see from this slide that demand for electricity has been flat. However, the sector has been investing in new renewable generation, lifting from around 70% a decade ago to 80% today. What this graph shows is, while the electricity generators have been investing in New Zealand's energy transition, the broader New Zealand economy has not. We are no more electrified today than we were a decade ago, yet electricity is much, much more renewable. New Zealand has chosen a market-based approach to the energy transition.
Markets, by their very nature, foster the rational deployment of capital, and that is exactly what we have seen in the electricity sector over the last decade of no demand growth. Countries which have transitioned over the past decade without subsidies have seen customer demand growth and strong demand-side policy settings, sending clear signals that have triggered rational investment in new generation. It is time for New Zealand as a whole to invest in both electrifying our country and new generation. New Zealand relies on foreign investment to fund our economy and our standard of living. The challenge is not just to attract that capital, but to have a long-term, stable market settings and capital structures that make it easy for that capital to land in New Zealand and build things in a meaningful way, driving investment in both electricity demand and electricity supply.
Under our new strategy, we are committed to playing our role to deliver the 60-95-100 scenario to Net Zero 2050 for New Zealand and growing shareholder value as we do. Our recent investment in taking a majority position in ChargeNet, New Zealand's fastest growing EV charging infrastructure provider, complements our existing investment in Ecotricity, New Zealand's largest distributed energy retailer, through scaled deployment of household rooftop solar and battery systems. These partnerships enable us to support our 500,000 customers in electrifying their homes and businesses, while we create new value pools to build shareholder returns from in the future. We are committed to investing around NZD 1 billion in new renewables by FY 2030, as we develop our generation portfolio to be 95% baseload renewable by FY 2035, producing long-term earnings growth profiles.
As we build new renewables, we will free up around 1,400 MW of energy security generation in the Huntly portfolio, which we intend to sell into the short and long-term energy security market, which, as winter 2024 has shown, is not fully covered by other participants in the market. Despite the operational challenges of FY 2024, we delivered all the Horizon One strategic objectives we said we would. We delivered on the first stages of moving to a lower cost, lighter touch retail model, focused on value share over volume share in the market. The challenges resulted in a reduction - or the changes resulted in a reduction of 130 full-time equivalent employees in our core retail and technology teams. By FY 2026, we will be operating retail with a total of 200 fewer full-time equivalent employees.
At the same time, we invested in growing our teams and skills across renewables development, adding specialist skills and subject matter experts in grid-scale batteries, solar development, and wind development. We also increased the capability in our trading and fuels teams.... The change process we navigated during the past year was one of the best I have been part of during my 30-year executive career. Over 90% of the team members at Genesis have been through some form of change process in the last twelve months, and the evidence of how well this was handled came in the follow-up survey of our people. Despite the major restructures, 81% of our team are engaged in the business and believe in our strategy.
That is 6% above the national benchmark and reflects the quality and capability we now have in both our executive and senior leadership teams to navigate large-scale change and transition while maintaining strong staff engagement. We also maintained our high customer satisfaction rating. The Genesis brand improved its customer satisfaction score while going through those changes by six points. Frank won the Consumer New Zealand People's Choice Award for the second year in a row, and our Power Shout program won the Best Overall Loyalty Program in our industry category at the Asia Pacific Loyalty Awards. Our billing and CRM platform upgrade is on track and on budget. We're planning for a late FY 2025 go live across our Frank brand, and full implementation across all brands by FY 2027. Our wholesale program gathered momentum.
The Lauriston Solar Farm is under construction with our joint venture partner, FRV Australia, and is due for first generation in December this year. A 10-year renewable energy supply partnership agreed with Spark, supported by the Lauriston development, is an example of how agreements can support the development of new renewable capacity, as well as deliver our partners' sustainability commitments. We've secured another solar site near Edgecumbe, in the Bay of Plenty, and final investment decision is due in the coming months, with first generation in the first half of 2026. We are on target to deliver our objective of 500 MW of solar generation by FY28. We reached final investment decision on the first stage of our grid-scale battery program at Huntly Power Station. Installation of the first 100-MW battery will start this year, with operation planned mid-2026.
Using the new battery at Huntly, we will be able to move solar generation from the middle of the day into the valuable evening peaks. Gas storage will allow our summer gas to be displaced by our solar generation, shifting summer gas into the more valuable winter period. Winter 2024 highlighted the need for New Zealand to be able to store energy at scale to cover dry year needs. We also learned that the same weather patterns that bring us dry years also produce wind droughts. Mother Nature didn't show up in 2021. She didn't again in 2024, and there will be years in the future when she won't show up again. During winter 2024, hydro and wind generated 30% less electricity than the year before.
The system as a whole didn't have this covered, and as a result, the country was short of stored energy reserves, with the result being a volatile wholesale electricity market. Genesis can be proud of two things from this past winter. Firstly, our 500,000 customers across the entire country were not exposed to the prices quoted in the media. We backed every one of our customers through this winter. Secondly, at short notice, Genesis was called on to deliver 25% more generation than the winter before, despite having less gas to do so. New Zealand was simply lucky that the Huntly coal stockpile was at 800,000 tons at the start of autumn. This was materially above the 350,000-ton operational stockpile Genesis would expect to have at that time of the year.
The current New Zealand wholesale electricity market rules require generators to carry a generation reserve, but not an energy reserve. During winter 2024, we were not at risk of running out of generation, we were at risk of running out of energy. This slide shows where New Zealand stores energy at scale for electricity. As you can see, hydro storage is around 4 TWh, gas is around 1 TWh, coal is around 2 TWh, but New Zealand's biggest energy reserves lie in our forests. If we take low-value logs, we can produce around 4 TWh of electricity each year. High-value logs, we could produce about 10 TWh, or 25% of all of the electricity that New Zealand uses. New Zealand's largest, cheapest, most sustainable, and reliable energy storage for electricity sits in our exotic forests.
Biomass, through the Rankine units at Huntly, offers the country as much as 4.5 TWh , more than all the hydro storage in New Zealand, of energy cover for dry years and low wind periods. Biomass used in the Rankine units produces competitive electricity prices, as can be seen on the slide. New Zealand has the opportunity to not only secure dry year cover using biomass from domestic forests without disrupting log exports or construction. The potential supply is also large enough to ultimately displace all of the coal and all of the gas in the system at the moment. Under our new strategy, Genesis is pursuing biomass at speed, investing in a dedicated team to deliver real outcomes and volumes by FY 2028.
While biomass as a fuel is important, we also need to secure a commercial pathway for at least two Rankines, with one reserve out to 2035-2040. In dry years, the Rankines become critical to New Zealand's electricity system. A commercial pathway for the Rankines beyond FY 2028 will require an adequate return on capital for Genesis. This year, we launched a new product into the market, Huntly Firming Options, or HFOs, to test how we might deliver both energy security and earnings security beyond FY 2028. A key feature of HFOs is they sell fixed capacity options to the market, with fuel reserves and costs sitting with the HFO holder rather than with Genesis. We were very pleased with the market response.
While this round of HFOs was a limited volume of only two years duration, we are working on how we deliver greater volumes with 10-year duration. Ten-year HFOs will be critical to triggering the investment in Rankine capacity to secure New Zealand's energy storage needs on biomass out to twenty thirty-five to forty. There will need to be sector support to deliver both and to secure the electricity system during years of low hydro and low wind. As we add more renewable generation to our portfolio, we will be able to offer more capacity at Huntly to HFOs to support the nation's energy security. Our financial performance in FY twenty-four had three significant impacts. First, was the loss of Unit 5, our 400 MW combined cycle gas turbine at Huntly Power Station. For seven months, following a fault, we were without this critical asset.
Much of the direct impact was insurable. However, the indirect impacts were not. We had to run Rankines for longer, burn more coal than we planned, and delay some of our planned outages in our hydro generation fleet. The second major impact of the year was the declining gas supply nationally, down 29%, almost 30% in a year. Less gas means more coal for New Zealand at this point in time, and coal is a more expensive way to generate electricity than gas is. The third impact was low hydrology and a lack of wind. In normal dry years, the country has been able to rely on gas generation to back up the grid. However, the national gas shortage meant that once Unit 5 was back online, we could not run it at full capacity.
In fact, 50% of New Zealand's gas generation sat idle through the winter. Our team responded well to these challenges to minimize their financial effect and ensure there was no impact on our customers. The challenges have, however, created a drag on our financial outcomes. OpEx was on budget, but up 10% on the prior year. The main restructures I mentioned occurred in the second half of the financial year, so the full effects are expected to flow through into FY 2025 and beyond. We've previously signaled higher time-limited OpEx, driven by investments in critical digital projects. This OpEx will peak in FY 2025 and 2026, before falling back to normal business's usual levels from 2027 and 2028 onwards. The next two years will be focused on controlling OpEx, completing the technology program, and deploying growth capital to drive earnings growth.
We have major CapEx being deployed across the next two financial years, and we expect to see the impact on earnings of this flow into FY 2027 and 2028. Until we secure a reliable supply of biomass, less gas does mean more coal for the electricity system. Combined with the Unit 5 outage and the low hydro levels, FY 2024 saw us burn a lot more coal, with a resulting increase in emissions of around 1.2 million tons of CO2. This means we will likely miss our FY 2025 science-based targets for emissions reduction, despite all our scopes of emissions being lower than our base year, FY 2020. We have always said that our emissions reduction journey will not be a straight line, but a trend over time.
We now intend to extend that timeline to be net zero by 2040, and this year we will apply to the Science Based Targets initiative for verification of this target and our journey to it in support of New Zealand's goal of reaching net zero by 2050. We have spent FY 2024 getting the team and the business future fit. We are in delivery mode, and we have a growth mindset. Our mission is to deliver eight earnings growth initiatives by 2028, our 8 by 28. These are the eight deliverables that will drive earnings from where they are now into the mid-500s by FY 2028, equating to around a 35% earnings growth over the coming years.
As you can see from this slide, each of the eight strategic items aligns with one of the three cogs in our Gen35 strategy: our customer cog, our company cog, and our country cog. We currently believe the long-run cost of electricity in today's dollars will be around NZD 115 a megawatt, and this underpins the modeling that we've done. We are well into delivery mode of each item on this list, and we will report our progress against it every six months. FY 2024 has been a transition year for our shareholders as well as our team, and we acknowledge that. The earnings outlook, pre the Gen35 strategy, was flat, then declining. That was because renewables would displace thermal, and we weren't building renewables.
Horizon two of Gen35 focuses on the 8 by 28 program, transitioning Genesis within New Zealand's energy transition and returning the company to an earnings growth outlook. Our focus for the next four years is on driving cost control, deploying capital to grow earnings, and maintaining our sector-leading yields for our shareholders. We are confident our strategy and the team we have in place can deliver this for our shareholders. Thank you very much for your support over the past year. I look forward to speaking on progress on the 8 by 28 over the coming periods. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Malcolm. We now are at a point to take questions on these two presentations, and I think to begin with, we've had a couple of questions emailed into us prior to this meeting. So I might ask Matt, if you don't mind, to read out the first of those, and I will respond to those. Once I've got through these questions, we'll take questions from the floor.
Thanks, Barbara. We have a first question here from a shareholder, Mr. John Blundell. "In November twenty twenty-three, the Genesis board updated the dividend policy to maintain in real terms and grow as appropriate. Mercury Energy has grown its dividend every year since listing in two thousand and fourteen, whilst Genesis cut the dividend in twenty twenty-three. This means a 30% cut in real terms since listing and Genesis shares have since underperformed. Will the Board commit to maintain dividends in real terms and adjust them by CPI or more each year going forward?
Thank you very much to Mr. Blundell for that question. the Board reset and announced a new dividend policy in November last year as part of our strategy reset under Gen35. Prior to that, our earnings forecast were to be in decline. We reset our dividend to NZD 0.14 per share. While this did represent a change for Genesis, the dividend yield for Genesis remains higher than our competitors, at around 9%. We know that earnings growth will drive share price growth, and so that's our focus. We're mindful that Genesis, as a company, needs investment to transform and grow longer term shareholder value. the Board carefully considers the appropriate use of capital across long-term investments, maintaining a strong balance sheet, and returning value to shareholders as dividends. The dividend reset will support Genesis to transform by investing in renewables, flexibility, and electrification.
We are also committed to maintaining our triple B plus credit rating for the long term. We see long-term value in these opportunities, and these require capital. I want to stress that each decision to invest is one where the expected returns exceed our risk-adjusted cost of capital, and as such, will drive earnings growth through to FY 2028 and beyond. With long-term earnings growth, we can deliver long-term dividend growth. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to permanently commit Genesis to a dividend policy, but the current dividend policy remains unchanged, which states: We will maintain dividend levels in real terms and grow where appropriate. Thanks, Matt.
Thank you. Next question, Mr. Tristram Snowden. He submitted two questions. The first question: The KS-9 well was an unmitigated disaster, which effectively gambled and lost NZD 80 million of shareholder capital. What work is being done to recover this lost capital, and when will shareholders receive benefit from this, such as a special dividend?
Mr. Snowden is referring to Genesis' investment alongside our joint venture partners, Beach and NZOG, into an additional well at the Kupe Field. The investment decision was made in consultation with our JV partners and external advisors. Yes, we acknowledge the result was disappointing and that this has resulted in a decline in gas production and earnings. The entire electricity sector in the country is undergoing a gas shortage, and this has resulted in higher energy costs for those not on fixed price contracts. The joint venture is reviewing options to restart the well, but I would note that the reserves were downgraded, indicating that there is less potential gas in reserves. Our focus now is on Gen35 investments, such as the Huntly Battery, and we'll return capital to shareholders aligned to our current dividend policy.
Second question. Genesis Energy dividends have been significantly reduced under the guise of investing capital into future developments. In contrast, other generators have not required this diversion of dividend to fund their future developments, and in one case, have even increased shareholder dividend payout. What is Genesis Energy doing that requires this drastically different capital management, and when will shareholders receive a benefit from it, by way of increasing share price and increasing dividend?
Genesis has paid stable and growing dividends since listing in 2014 through to 2024. We made the decision to reduce the dividend to invest, to transform our portfolio through our Gen 35 strategy. As I said in my answer to Mr. Blundell, earnings were forecast to decline, so we chose to invest in a new strategy. Genesis chose to distribute a higher level of earnings over the past decade, and we're now at a point where we need to reinvest for our business. the Board carefully considers Genesis' capital position, balancing the requirements of investing for growth, maintaining an appropriate balance sheet setting, and returning capital to shareholders. As I said, it's also our intention to retain a BBB+ credit rating in the long term.
the Board and management are mindful that all investments made do need to return value to shareholders in the long run. Decisions to invest are tested against a risk-adjusted rate of return so that we can deliver long-term earnings and continue to return capital to shareholders. As an example, our recent investment in ChargeNet is a long-term investment in infrastructure with strong long-term returns. We expect an internal rate of return above 15%. We need to note that Genesis is different to our competitors, with different assets and a broader transition challenge. Huntly will need to evolve, as we've demonstrated with our battery and biomass plans, and that's going to require investment. So those are the questions that we received ahead of this meeting. Questions from the floor are now open. If you have a question, please indicate by popping your hand up.
Remember, this meeting is being webcast, so you'll need to be heard by a remote audience. So please wait for the microphone to arrive before speaking. Those shareholders attending online today may also submit questions, and I will address those after we have had questions from the floor. So before asking your question, can you please state your name, if you're a shareholder, proxy holder, or a shareholder representative?
Uh, shareholder.
Thanks.
Sean Woods. Hey, why is it you can't get a commercial gas account with Genesis?
I beg your pardon?
Why is it you can't get a commercial gas account with Genesis?
I might pass that one to Malcolm.
Yeah, sure.
'Cause if you want to grow customers, you've got to sort of maybe be able to sell shit to them.
We can't grow gas customers because we don't have the gas. As short as that. At the moment, we are not taking new gas customers. We are working hard to honor existing contracts, but the reality is, New Zealand has 30% less gas today than it had a year ago. You have to balance supply and demand. You can't sell something you haven't got. We haven't got the gas to sell.
Did you know by estimate how much gas you had last year?
Well, no, I think if you listen to what Barbara said, we banked KS-9 into our forecast, and that hasn't produced gas. So it'd be irresponsible to go and sell new gas connections if you couldn't supply the gas.
... Thanks, Malcolm. Any more questions from the floor? Yes.
You mentioned biomass. Can you just give us a little bit more elaboration on biomass in itself, and where you're extracting this from, the sort of efficiency that will provide versus our hydro scheme as it so stands?
I think you need to think of biomass as a substitute for coal rather than a substitute for hydro, because of the cost of production, obviously. Biomass, the trial that we did might be a year or more or so ago, proved that biomass pellets, the black torrefied pellets, can run through the Rankines and can be used in substitution for coal or along with coal. The next challenge is to find enough for it to be a viable replacement of coal over time, and that's what we're working towards. There is good demand for biomass globally, and, there's obviously, as you saw from Malcolm's slide, there's a lot of forestry in New Zealand that could be used for biomass, for creating the pellets.
The industry needs to stand up to make that happen, and we're, you know, hoping to be a driving force in and around that. So it's a pretty exciting future for us, you know, with the use of biomass. Hi.
Tim, shareholder. Probably a reflection of my age, but been working overseas, and data centers are quite at the forefront of everyone's minds overseas, and I'm just wondering the potential for Genesis Energy's consumption.
There's no doubt that data centers do drive up demand for electricity, and so as we sort of forecast out how much electricity is gonna be needed across New Zealand, particularly with the build of these data centers, which are very energy hungry, as you know, you know, those sorts of things are being factored in. There was a joint industry study done by BCG, was it? One of the consulting firms, that factored those kinds of things in to give the industry a sense of what that demand is going forward. So yeah, as we're going through this transition, and as there's a lot of volatility in the sector, and, you know, the rain doesn't come, and the wind doesn't blow, the demand is going up at the same time, and so we're all very conscious. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
It's an exciting sort of time to be in the sector.
Good afternoon, Peter Mussburger, shareholder. Biomass, coal, gas: Can you give us an idea of what the pollution settings are for each of those fuels to generate electricity?
I don't have the numbers in my head. Malcolm, do you? Like, coal, coal's worst.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, on a gross basis, gas is roughly half the emissions of coal. If the gas is imported, that changes quite significantly. In terms of the comparison to biomass to coal, I don't have that to hand.
Tracy?
But if you are replanting the fiber at the same time you're harvesting it, you do go into a zero carbon cycle in terms of that. But I'm sorry, I don't have that comparison to hand.
Estelle, can you give a mic to Tracy, who might be able to answer it, please?
Thank you. Assuming that we are able to produce the biomass locally, through sustainable forests, then biomass represents about a 90% reduction in emissions than coal. So that's what we're going after.
Thanks, Tracy. So it's meaningful. Thanks for the question. Any more questions from-
Are you saying you're currently getting it by foreign, country by coal, and just turning it to biomass or?
Might just grab that on the mic so that the people online can hear you.
So are you just gonna convert Huntly from burning coal to biomass instead?
Huntly will be able to have flexibility in and around its fuels. So ideally, you know, we, if we have gas, we can run gas. We, if we have coal, we can run coal. When biomass comes on stream, we can run biomass. There's also a diesel unit at Huntly, and we're also gonna have batteries at Huntly. So for us, there's a preference towards biomass, obviously, because of the emissions. There's, you know, a preference away from coal because of those emissions that are high. But we want to have the flexibility and continue to have the flexibility at that facility, because I think New Zealand needs that kind of fuel flexibility going forward. Yes, very much a strong preference to biomass. There's a question down the back. Jump in if you've got anything to add.
Alan Bennett, a shareholder. While we're talking about biomass, is... I mean, we've heard a lot in the last couple of years about slash out of the forests. Would that be included, or is that just too an expensive thing to do? I'm just trying to, can we get, is there a win-win here somewhere, you know, where we can use something which is rubbish and still get production out of it?
I think Tracy wants to take that question, too.
I'm not sure she wants to, but she's going to.
Thank you. Yes. Look, one of the options that we are pursuing is small, modular, biomass production units that you could effectively take into where forest waste material is available, and that includes the sort of slash that we've learned about, particularly since Cyclone Gabrielle. So that's one of our objectives and, what we're working on at the moment.
... Thank you. Another question?
Peter again. Lauriston Solar expected to be operational by quarter two next year. Does that have battery storage?
What was the question?
The question of Lauriston Solar Farm, which will be commissioned and operational at the end of this year, so producing electricity for the grid in the first quarter of next calendar year. It doesn't at this stage. It has the opportunity of down the track, but we're focusing on the grid-scale battery at Huntly as our battery focus at the moment, but all of our solar developments will have the ability to have batteries added at a later date.
Thank you.
Thank you. Any more questions before I take one on from online? One more down here.
I was over at Meridian this morning, and they were incentivizing Fonterra, Vulcan Steel to come over to electricity as well, away from diesel or... Are we working with them as well, like Fonterra, to come over to electrical?
Yes.
And incentivizing them or just-
We live in a commercial world, and we compete. [Foreign language]. Thanks again.
We don't know what the question is.
You can't hear the question through the mic?
I didn't understand what he meant by his question. He might be talking in circles. I hope it's to other people, but-
Sure, let me explain it. So Fonterra, like Genesis, uses coal for industrial heat, and Meridian are offering incentives to move off coal and onto electricity. And the question was: Is Genesis having similar conversations with customers? And the answer is yes. So part of the electrification is not just Genesis looking at how it gets off coal, but anywhere that you have industrial heat for manufacturing milk powder or steel or whatever, that's using coal, that has to move to another lower carbon fuel source. So the question was: Are we engaging with our customers? And the answer is yes, we are.
One more question here. Matt, are there questions online?
Yeah. Vaughn, shareholder. Training of staff, and in particular, young folk coming through the likes of apprenticeships and into the technician training field. I wonder how many you might have currently under training. And the other part of the question, I notice the Board is very, very heavily qualified with BAs. What is the situation with those that have got BEs in engineering and electrical and mechanical?
Look, I can answer that one in the sense that probably a degree isn't the thing that we're most looking for when we're looking at our skills matrix on the Board. We've got people on our board, like Catherine and James and Paul, who have worked for a very long time in and around the energy sector. And so those people bring the right governance skills to the Board to help us with the decisions that we have. The first part of your question... Sorry, I've just lost sight of it.
The apprentices.
Oh, the apprenticeships. Actually, it's interesting. I'll pass to you in a minute, Claire. I was at the Tekapo, our facility down there last week or the week before, and they were asking the questions about apprenticeships, too, because they're very, you know, very aware of the fact they need to pass the baton off to new people to work in these generation facilities. So it was a very live discussion, but we do have an apprenticeship training program, but I'll just pass over to Tracy again.
Yeah, thank you. So, look, really share that we have a strong interest in ensuring that we have highly capable people and that we have succession coming into the business. Over the last few years, we've invested in a program we call Ngā Ara Pathways, and that starts with bringing in young people as interns, into summer interns, as grad, you know, whilst they're doing their degrees, and then as tertiary graduates, and as apprentices through the trades. So, I can't tell you precisely how many apprentices we have at the moment. It's a handful, and as our aging workforce retires, we'll obviously increase that number over time.
There's quite a good section in our annual report on what we're doing around apprenticeships, around supporting schools, around STEM. So if you take the time to find a copy of that, you might find it interesting.
Okay, good. Thank you. Are there any more questions from the floor? One down the back.
Noel Phillips, shareholder. The world is full of plastics, which everybody has a responsibility of doing something about. Most of it these days seems to go into the rivers and the sea, or perhaps gets buried. Is there any way that that plastic can be converted to produce electricity, by some means of converting it? Get rid of it.
There are facilities, and I went and visited one in Denmark, that have very big waste-to-energy conversion facilities that burn a whole lot of rubbish and then reticulate that around places like Copenhagen for heat in households and things like that. We've had a look at that in New Zealand. The strange reality of it is that we probably don't have enough rubbish to burn to make that commercially viable. But I think over time, these facilities will get more compact, and you know, these kinds of conversations need to be kept alive because there is a lot of rubbish around, as you say, and turning that into fuel is definitely something that we see overseas, but at a much, much larger scale than we can see commercially viable in New Zealand at the moment.
... Hi, Ross Jolly, shareholder. Was there any merit in the Lake Onslow proposal at all?
Look, I don't want to get political about-
Is it political?
Lake Onslow, but what I will say is now that a decision has been made on Onslow, the benefit to the sector is that we've got certainty. So while Onslow was hanging around as an idea that may or may not progress, it's very hard for a company like Genesis to think about: How do we invest in our renewables program? Because if that comes online, then we get left with these stranded assets because that will take over. So whether or not it was a good idea, I think is academic. For us, it's a good idea to have more certainty as we go through our renewables program. Thank you. Right, I might take some questions online.
Yep. So we do have some online questions. Just for those listening online, I've taken the liberty of paraphrasing some of the more lengthy questions that we've received. So if you feel that I have missed your question or not reflected it correctly, apologies in advance, and obviously you can contact us at the Investor Relations website also. So first question from Stephen Mayne . "In 2019, ASX-listed Treasury Wine Estates voluntarily moved to annual elections for directors in line with best practice in the U.S. and the U.K. Can the chair and/or the directors that are up for re-election today comment on whether Genesis will follow this lead and voluntarily move to annual elections of directors at the 2025 AGM in order to lift shareholder accountability?
Look, thank you very much for the question. I'm aware that there is a trend towards this, but it is not building in this part of the world, and so I don't think it's a necessary requirement for Genesis to take the lead on annual shareholder elections at this point. So I will say no to that one.
Next question also from Stephen Mayne : the ASX is currently in the midst of an unprecedented deluge of takeovers that has contributed to listed entities falling by 170 or 7.4% to 2,124 since June 2022. There is a clear mispricing between public markets and private markets. Why are public markets not valuing ASX and NZX-listed companies like ours more highly? And adjunct to that, "What special protections do we have to avoid being taken over?
I think the special protection to avoid being taken over at this point is 51% Crown ownership, which many of the three of the SOEs face that, so I don't see that as a major threat to Genesis at the moment. In terms of, you know, share price and what's happening, I think we've adequately covered the overhang in our share price in this presentation. The, you know, there is a switch. We can all see it. There is a switch to private. You know, it's happening in some sectors more specifically than others, but I don't really have anything to add on that, unless you do, Malcolm.
I attended a seminar in Australia earlier this year on exactly this, the switch to private and public capital markets versus, you know, private direct investment. And certainly, as super funds and retirement funds grow, the speed with which they want to move at isn't adequately accommodated in public capital markets. And that appeared, from that conversation, to be the biggest issue. And but in terms of why the valuations are different between the two, I wouldn't be an expert to comment on that.
I don't either.
Next question, also from Mr. Maine. Mr. Maine notes that the Prime Minister, as a former public company CEO, understands the challenges we face as a public company and is clearly taking a more pro-business policy approach. What has the change of government meant for our business? And separate to that, he notes that the Australian opposition is pushing for Australia to develop a government-supported nuclear power industry. What do we think of that?
I think that might be one of those political things that I'm not gonna get into about nuclear power. You know, obviously, it's. I don't think it's on the agenda for New Zealand. Look, simple things that are coming out of this government that we didn't see in the prior government are things like certainty around Onslow, for example, and things like streamlining the Resource Management Act to make it simpler for an organization like ours to go through reconsenting processes in and around our hydro schemes, for example. So there have been some things that coming along, you know, are helpful. I think, the change in the government stance on oil and gas potentially is also helpful, but whether or not that...
Whether or not companies will invest in oil and gas exploration, it's difficult to know because obviously there's a sovereign risk if the government changes and people have invested in that kind of exploration. So there have been some good things come along that, you know, we can certainly seize hold of that just make things a little bit better for companies like ours.
Couple of questions from Oliver and Hildegard Crolman. First of that is: What different kinds of fossil fuel and biofuels can be burnt in your thermal units at Huntly?
It might be a Tracy question. Malcolm?
I'll take it. In essence, the Rankines can use any form of solid fuel, like coal and biomass or anything that can be gasified. So if you think about waste-to-energy, it goes through a torrefaction process, produces a gas. We burn the gas in the gas turbines the same way we would natural gas. And so it really, if it can be - if it's liquid, gas, or solid, in the right form, we can put it through one of the machines at Huntly.
... second question: Please describe in more detail your relationship with the electricity retailer, Ecotricity?
The what?
Ecotricity.
Ecotricity.
Yeah, you take that one.
We own currently 70% of Ecotricity, and we have a contractual obligation to buy out the final 30% at a point in time. And we'll execute that. And so ultimately, we're a majority shareholder at this point in time, but it becomes part of Genesis at some point in time in the future.
Ecotricity is just a different energy company that Genesis bought into, a couple of years ago? Yeah, generator.
Next question from Margaret Gordon: Does Genesis see potential in advancing large-scale battery storage and tidal energy?
Can you just repeat the second part of that? Large-scale battery storage and...
Tidal, tidal energy.
Not at this point in time.
And that's the final question. No more questions.
Thanks. There's a question here, too.
Is there any chance you'll be doing joint ventures to go for, go look for some more gas at all?
Look, our preference is definitely to go on our renewables development path rather than go upstream into more exploration of oil and gas, so it's not on the horizon at the moment.
So what are we going to be doing with importing gas from Australia?
So we said on our list today that the role that we wanna play is as an offtaker to underwrite investment. So if there are joint ventures out there that are looking for gas, good example is Taranaki. New Zealand Energy Corporation is currently drilling a well at Taranaki. We've purchased all the offtake of that gas. By purchasing that offtake, that's underwritten the drilling of the well. So that's where we wanna play in the upstream sector going forward. And that's where we see ourselves.
'Cause you're underwriting it pretty much, why don't you become a shareholder, and you've got a win-win situation when they hit gold?
Yeah, it's primarily about capital management. We don't have unlimited capital, so we have to deploy it in a prioritized sort of a way. And the gas is the most important thing for us, 'cause ultimately we generate electricity from it. And so if there are other ways of structuring that, just like the joint venture with Lauriston, in terms of finding different ways to bring that production to market, you know, then we will do that. Yeah.
I might move on. We do have the opportunity for additional questions at the end of this meeting. But I'd now like to get to the formal part of the meeting, and this year we have two resolutions on which to vote. For those present, if you don't have a pen or a voting paper and would like one, please pop your hand up, and our Computershare representative will come and help you. For those online, you may cast your votes through the Computershare platform under the Vote tab. Once voting has opened, the resolutions will allow votes to be submitted. To vote, simply select your voting direction from the options shown on the screen. You can vote for all resolutions at once or by each individual resolution. Your vote has been cast when the tick appears. To change your vote, simply select Change Your Vote.
You may change your vote until the time I declare voting closed. I now declare voting open on both items of business. The resolutions are open in the Vote tab. Please submit your votes at any time, and I will let you know before I move to close voting. You'll be able to raise questions before I formally put each resolution forward for voting. Those present in person, please raise your hand, and a microphone will be brought to you if you wish to speak to a resolution. As I'm up for re-election this year, I will now hand over to Catherine Drayton to conduct this part of the meeting. If someone needs help...
Yes, ma'am, someone will come and help you right now.
Hello, Cheryl Scott speaking, shareholder. Are both of the re-elected directors or chairperson going to give an address to this meeting, please?
We are.
All right. Thank you. That's what was concerning me. It wasn't discussed.
Thank you.
Well, good afternoon. [Foreign language] . I'm just gonna lead you through this first resolution. So this first resolution relates to Barbara, and the resolution is that Barbara will be re-elected as a director of the company. So the Board can confirm to you that Barbara is standing as an independent director. the Board recommends Barbara and to you as a director of Genesis Energy and is unanimous in their support of her. So I'm inviting now Barbara to speak to you, and then I'll come back and take questions. Okay? Thank you.
[Foreign language] . Thank you for the opportunity to stand for re-election on the Genesis board. Genesis is an important company for New Zealand. We sit at the heart of the energy transition in New Zealand's energy security. All directors on this board, myself included, take this responsibility very seriously. As shareholders, you should rightly challenge what every director brings to the table. My background in financial services in New Zealand and Australia, as well as the perspectives that I bring from the other boards on which I serve, enable me to see issues and trends across many sectors in New Zealand, which provides insights into how New Zealand in general is traveling and how that might apply to Genesis. The three years since my last election has been a period of change for Genesis.
We have a new CEO, a refreshed leadership team, and are clear-eyed on our important role in the energy sector today and tomorrow. This has come through clearly in our Gen35 strategy and how we're executing against that. What I bring to Genesis is a focus on creating a sustainable future for the company to provide for long-term value creation for shareholders. A focus on the culture within the business, with a drive to improvement in leadership, performance, diversity, and inclusion. A focus on simplicity over complexity and urgency over complacency, and a determination to keep the lights on for New Zealanders as we juggle with the competing pressures of managing fuels, emissions, and supporting others in the sector who also rely on our thermal generation as New Zealand's demand for electricity grows.
It's an exciting time to be on the Board and to be the chair of Genesis, and I very much appreciate your support for my re-election today. You can be assured that I'm committed to advocating for the best interests of our shareholders and ensuring transparency, accountability, and ethical governance in all our actions. Thank you.
Oops. Yeah. Good, yeah. Okay, so what's gonna happen now is very much like before. If you want to ask a question that relates to the resolution, just say your name and whether you're a shareholder or a shareholder rep. And first, we're going to turn to the floor, and then once we're done with the floor, we're going to go to online. So same, same process as last time. So do I have any questions or comments from the floor? None? That's great. Sir.
Hi. Hi, Vaughn, shareholder. In terms of executing, Gen35, that's a shade over a decade away. I wonder how one might look at the achievements between now and then, and the alignment and the accountability that goes with it.
And in an infrastructure business, it's very important to have that long-term view and a cascade of objectives and map them over time. So, Malcolm, I'm actually going to ask you to talk to that cascade over a period of time.
Gen35 looks out over 10 years. It looks out over the 10-year transition of the energy transition in New Zealand. But we've broken it down into three chunks. The first one was one year in duration. That's Horizon One we've just been through. The second is Horizon Two, which is the 8 by 28 that I spoke about. The eight deliverables of the next four years are there to drive earnings up by around 35%, and that's our focus. We're not really thinking directly about the objectives that are beyond that. But if you take Huntly, for example, 1,400 MW of firming and peaking sold to the market by 2035, in the 8 by 28, that's 500 MW. It chunks down into those stages.
500 MW of solar, Horizon Three, 300 MW of wind. So you can see how it breaks down. And I think in the annual report, the three horizons in there and their objectives are detailed. But if they're not, they're certainly on the website. So if you, we can help, we can help show you that if you like. But our focus as a board and an executive is those eight deliverables over the next four years. The broader strategy then cascades layers up from there. Does that answer your question?
Yeah, that's fine. It's still a sort of... You need that projection of length-
Yes.
- but tying and relating and, accountability through that timeframe becomes sort of difficult to attach.
Correct.
Maybe I could just add to that. During that time period, if things change, like suddenly finding there's far less gas than we and all other gas players thought, then we will iterate in the How space, which was accelerating the pivot to biomass. The other thing that might be helpful to point out is our remuneration structure for our executive team actually links to some of those objectives that are longer term in nature, and that you can also see in the annual report, so that speaks to your accountability piece.
This gentleman. Did you have a question, sir, or were you just shielding your eyes from the light? So does anyone else have a comment or question from the floor?... Over here?
Tim, shareholder. I'm just wondering if Barbara's re-election for chair, or is it just for a director?
This is the reelection for director. If you like, our general counsel can explain to you-
Re-elections is the chair.
Yeah, I know, but I sort of expect it not coming from you. But, perhaps you can formally answer the question on how the chair gets appointed.
Yes. So the chair is elected from the directors among themselves. Yeah, so this is a reelection as a director. Yeah.
Which is normal in most companies. Any further questions from the floor? We're all done? Lovely. Online?
Yep, we have one further question online, from a shareholder, Eva Quidding. "Greetings, Barbara. What do you see as the top three challenges of working as Genesis Energy's chair?
As managing our board. Look, I think the challenges are the same as the excitements of being involved in Genesis. So the challenge is, how do we actually navigate our way through the transition going on in the sector at the right pace that delivers value for shareholders, but also ensures the stability of the company? I think that's number one. Number two, I think is looking out even further than that. You know, what are the trends going on around the world that can actually benefit Genesis? You know, how do we, as a board, immerse ourselves in some of those things and bring those back into New Zealand and work with Malcolm and his team over time to make sure that we're staying ahead of this tsunami of change that's going on in the sector over time.
And then the third one, I think we've addressed it quite well. You know, I think the... There's no doubt that the share price hasn't performed well, and I do thank you all for your tolerance around that. But the way I look at it is, had we not done what we did, we were walking into our own Kodak moment. We would have been left behind in the transition, and things would have been worse for you as shareholders. And so it was, you know, quite a difficult step to do what we did and get it right and put this company back on a front footing to compete in the future going forward, so that we didn't have our Kodak moment.
I'm just mindful, as one of my major challenges, to make sure we stay there, you know, make sure we stay out of that Kodak moment situation, because that's not good for any of our shareholders. So they would be my focus.
Okay. So with that, I think we're done in the question and comment department. So I'd like to give you a moment for you to process your votes. So I'm just gonna stand here and look stupid for a bit while you do that. So I'm going to assume- [audio distotion].
Yes, they are. Sorry, Michelle's got a shareholder. Have you already got a whole lot of proxies? You're going to put those on the screen, so everyone in the room-
Yes, that- That happens further into the AGM.
Not before we vote?
No, not before you vote.
Thank you.
So you're being asked now to vote, both here physically and online. But yes, of course, there are, proxies that have already been filed. So have we all... We're all done? Thank you. With that, I'll pass you back to Barbara.
Thanks, Catherine.
Thank you, Catherine. Resolution two proposes that James Moulder be re-elected as a director of the company. the Board has confirmed that James is standing as an independent director, and the Board recommends James to you as a director of Genesis Energy Limited and unanimously supports his re-election. I now ask James to come and address us.
Thank you, Barbara. Tena koutou, and good afternoon, fellow shareholders. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak today as I seek your continued support for my election to the Board of Genesis Energy. Since joining the Board in 2018, I've had the privilege of contributing as a member of the Audit and Risk Committee, where I've worked hard to ensure that Genesis remains resilient, forward-thinking and focused on long-term shareholder value. As the energy landscape continues to evolve, I'm committed to helping Genesis navigate the complexities of transitioning to a low-carbon energy future while maintaining profitability and growth. I bring over twenty years' experience in the energy sector, having held executive management roles at Mighty River Power, now known as Mercury Energy, where I led retail, trading, and generation.
These experiences gave me a deep understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities within the New Zealand electricity market. In addition to my domestic work, I've advised the Singaporean and Australian governments on electricity market reform, giving me valuable local and international insights. These perspectives are increasingly important as Genesis competes in a world where energy markets and environmental standards are interconnected.... I'm excited about the opportunities we have to lead in this space and deliver on our commitment to a low-carbon energy future. I believe my governance experience, strategic leadership, and focus on sustainability position me well to continue to serve you, the shareholders, in guiding Genesis forward to a prosperous and sustainable future. Thank you for your support and trust.
Thanks very much, James. Is there any discussion on this resolution to reappoint James?
Just one question, James. Well, how much carbon is there in the atmosphere?
A lot. Probably too much.
How much do you think it is?
I think we've talked about the number of, like, five hundred parts per million or whatever that we're trying to avoid.
Yeah. There is in the atmosphere, it's 0.04%. If we go down to 0.02%, everything green in the planet dies. So we're going on this carbon witch hunt at the moment, where we've got to pay for carbon credits, and all that sort of stuff, but it's only a small part of the environment. It's minute, minute. When you-
Sir, I'm happy to have the conversation with you after the meeting.
Oh. Yeah, I'd quite like, if you don't mind, to draw this back to the fact that we're voting on James, and we can have a separate conversation later.
Are there any other questions in relation to James' re-election from the room? Are there any online, Matt? Okay, thank you very much. It appears to be no further questions or discussions, so I'm now going to put the vote of the ordinary resolution that James Mulder be re-elected as a director of the company. We'll give you a moment to mark your voting form or via the Computershare portal in relation to this resolution. That concludes our discussion on the items of business, and in a minute, I will close the voting system, so please ensure that you have cast your votes on all resolutions. And I'm now going to pause to give you time to finalize that. If those in the room have finished voting, could you just pop your hand up, and we can pick up the ballots?
Can we see the proxies in our voting?
We'll see, we'll see the proxies once the votes have been gathered, sir. We don't, we don't show the proxies first because it, it swings the vote.
Just ask, just to help you. [audio distortion]
No, it's on Computershare.
Yeah, it's Computershare.
Okay, for those online, I will now declare voting closed. And having handed things in, can we show the summary of the proxy votes, please? So this slide, which is for information, is a summary of the proxy votes received by the company before voting closed. Thank you all for casting your votes. Your votes will now be collected by Computershare, and the full results of the voting will be announced to the market as they are available. Shareholders now have the opportunity to raise any items of general business that may lawfully be put to the meeting. Those online may use the Computershare site to do this. Select the Q&A tab, type in the item you wish to raise into the box on the bottom of the screen, and press Send.
Any questions in the room?
And if so, could you please raise your hand, and we'll get a microphone to you. Yes, there's two here. We'll take the lady behind you first, sir.
Alan Bennett, a shareholder.
Oh, sorry, Alan.
So this may be out of the context of this meeting. I have a-
Speak in the microphone.
I am speaking in the microphone. You good? I have an interest in New Zealand's offshore islands, and particularly in Rakiura Stewart Island. I'm wondering if Genesis Energy or the energy market has any way of developing the electricity to supply in some of these places. For example, Rakiura Stewart Island still runs on diesel power-
Yes
... has done for ever since the beginning. And it seems to me a no-brainer that you can't run a cable to some of these places, and not only overcome the pollution, overcome the mechanics, but also lower the price for such people.
... Thank you.
Yeah. Do you want to take that? That's a Transpower question, isn't it?
Pretty much.
Yeah.
Look, I don't know the answer.
Running cables and things like that are a Transpower question. That's not in our mandate to be doing that. We supply energy to the grid, but we're not the managers of the grid.
Do you have any influence in those areas?
Oh, we certainly have discussions with those sorts of, you know, with Transpower and the like, but it's definitely outside our mandate in terms of our commercial imperative. But I agree with you, you know, diesel's not great, and it would be good to be able to have a solution like that, but that's not within our power. There was a question here. Sorry, you guys are in very bright light. Did you have a question? Yeah.
Vaughn again, shareholder. With respect to solar energy in particular, and households, what's the position that you have, the company has, with respect to supporting and encouraging houses to move to that field? And secondly, the end result of when those units are no longer functioning, and they have to be removed, the recycling process, is there any forward-looking position in that?
Certainly, the household solar is a small sector in New Zealand. I think our number is 30% of household solar is within the orbit of Genesis. But, Malcolm, you might want to elaborate.
Our investment in Ecotricity is very much focused on distributed energy and household solar and battery. Ecotricity is the largest retailer, but in the context of New Zealand, it's still a very, very small part. Two parts to your question. In terms of household solar, there is roughly 100,000 households in New Zealand that we believe are interested in rooftop solar and battery. And as the largest retailer of rooftop solar and battery, we are well down the track in terms of learning how to use it as part of our overall portfolio. And so if you think about the old industrial electricity model, you generate here, you transmit, you distribute, and you consume over here. There's no question that electrons are gonna start flowing in both directions.
And as I said, we're well down the track in terms of learning on how to live in an environment where electrons flow in two directions. In terms of the second part of your question, what happens at the end of the life of photovoltaic cells? Could answer that from a grid scale perspective, 'cause we own the solar panels, and we have a recycling process as part of our final investment decision of going into grid scale solar. At a household level, I don't know the answer of... 'cause the household owns the solar, I don't know the answer of what happens to household solar at the end of its life.
Thank you.
I could actually add to that.
Catherine.
There are companies in New Zealand looking at extraction of raw materials from lithium-ion batteries. So I chair Mint Innovation. We extract gold, silver, and copper from e-waste, and we have an R&D program looking at just that.
Thanks, Catherine. There was a question here.
... Hola. Hyman Schwartz, shareholder. I know your picture of Tekapo B. We haven't had much discussion around hydro. Is hydro really capped out in New Zealand, or is there any prospect, and is Genesis looking at any expansion in the hydro electricity field, given its sustainability?
The way I would describe the answer to that, and Tracy can correct me if I'm wrong, is there are always tweaks that go on in and around refurbishment, for example, of our hydro assets, that are able to squeeze just a little more energy out of those. And there are discussions around sort of different types of microhydro opportunities in and around rivers. But in terms of, you know, big scale, think big type hydro, there are no discussions around those sorts of things. Tracy, do you want to add? No.
No.
Thank you. Any more questions from the room? Any online?
There's one online, and it was for James. James, can you please talk about what you see as the company's top three risks going forward?
Well, come up here, James. Pass the microphone.
Thanks for the question. I think that there are a number of risks and opportunities for the business, and I don't really look at them as risks. I look at them as both risks and opportunities. The first one is the fact that the energy transition is requiring people to look differently at the energies that are provided to them and how they use them. It provides both a risk and an opportunity. The competitiveness of the New Zealand economy is also dependent on us being able to provide sustainable, reliable, and cost-effective energy. That presents quite a considerable risk and opportunity.
And making sure that we've got the capital and the resources available to make sure that we can provide the position in the market to deliver on those opportunities as a business is also a risk and an opportunity, so that pretty much answers my question, that question.
Thanks very much, James. Any more, Matt?
No further questions.
Okay. To wrap up, this is my sixth year leading Genesis as the chair of the Board, and I thank my colleagues on the Board for their support and the support and the hard work of Malcolm Johns and his management and executive team. So thank you to all of you. I am proud to lead an organization committed to powering a sustainable and thriving New Zealand. We have built strong foundations for future growth, and I look forward to continuing the good work for you, our shareholders, and for our customers and our wider stakeholders. Thanks for everyone coming along today. I'd like to invite those present to share some refreshments with us and take the opportunity to interact with members of the Board and the executive team. This concludes our twenty twenty-four Annual Shareholder Meeting. Thank you.