Developing a future grid blueprint for Aotearoa
When you think of 2050, what does your local economy look like? New technology helping to take primary industries to the next level? Sustainable aviation fuel powering our tourism industry? A high-tech economy exporting New Zealand-built software to the world?
Whatever the future brings, electricity will be at its heart.
At Transpower, we’re responsible for getting electricity around the country. Through our Te Kanapu initiative, we’re developing a future grid blueprint – a guide for what our national grid will need to look like in 2050 to help drive economic growth and the path to net zero.
To build this future grid blueprint, we’re working collaboratively with others right across the country – businesses, iwi and hapū, and communities.
The future grid blueprint isn’t just about how we move electricity – it’s about how we can use electricity to support everyone in this country to grow and thrive.
Read more about the background and context for Te Kanapu - the future grid blueprint
How we're creating the blueprint
We started in July 2025 by asking individuals and organisations about the future of Aotearoa – what will 2050 look like, what new and existing industries are likely to drive the economy and what are their priorities for the electricity system.
Imagining Aotearoa in 2050 - see what people told us
Next, we developed five potential scenarios describing what Aotearoa’s economy might look like in 2050 and what that would mean for electricity demand. Each scenario also includes a description of the likely generation mix in 2050 under those settings. The scenarios were open for public consultation in October/November 2025.
In March 2026, we revised and finalised the scenarios based on the feedback we’d received through consultation and engagement.
We published a suite of documents outlining the technical approach we will use to create the future grid blueprint in December 2025. These documents outline how we will take the electricity demand projections from our potential scenarios, run them through power system and economic modelling and use the results to understand what changes are needed in each scenario.
Read about our technical approach, including detailed documents
What's next
Over the coming months we will be undertaking technical analysis in line with our methodology on the scenarios we have developed to produce the data that will sit under our draft grid blueprint.
Later in 2026 we will publish the draft grid blueprint, combining all insights and research from the programme to date. This draft will be open for formal consultation so stakeholders can share their views, helping us to refine the blueprint before we finalise it.
Keep in touch
We’d love to hear from you and are happy to arrange meetings to discuss the future grid blueprint and hear your views.