Kia ora Spencer,

Thank you for your Official Information Act request of 2 August 2025.
We will endeavour to respond to your request as soon as possible and in any event no later than 29 August 2025, being 20 working days after the day your request was received.
If you have any queries, please feel free to contact us by emailing [Electricity Authority request email].

Ngā mihi nui,

Ashley
Senior Ministerial Advisor
Level 7, AON Centre, 1 Willis Street
PO Box 10041, Wellington 6143, New Zealand
http://www.ea.govt.nz/

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Kia ora Spencer,

 

Thank you for your requests received 2 August 2025, asking for the
following information under the Official Information Act 1982 (Act):

 

                Under the Official Information Act 1982, I request the
following information concerning the deployment and regulation of smart
(advanced) electricity meters in New Zealand:

o Copies of safety reviews, monitoring reports, or compliance audits
carried out by or provided to the Electricity Authority since 2010
that evaluate the electromagnetic field (EMF) emissions,
radiofrequency (RF) output, or power quality of smart meters installed
at residential properties.
o Any data, reports, or enforcement notices issued under the Electricity
Industry Participation Code 2010 (particularly Clause 11.27) that
relate to:
o Faulty, unsafe, or non-compliant smart meter installations;
o Health complaints, electrical surges, or equipment damage reported by
consumers.
o Any communications or reports shared with the Ministry of Health,
MBIE, or WorkSafe regarding consumer health complaints, risk
mitigation, or EMF safety standards applied to smart meter
installations.

 

And:

 

Pursuant to the Official Information Act 1982, I request:

 1. All risk assessments, exposure modelling or compliance documentation
prepared or commissioned by the Authority relating to smart meter EMF
safety, including internal reviews or data shared with distribution
networks (Vector, Northpower, etc.).
 2. Records of any public enquiries, complaints or dispute cases received
by the Electricity Authority from consumers claiming health symptoms
following smart meter installation, including the nature, status, and
resolution of each case.
 3. Copies of policy or advice papers wherein the Electricity Authority
reviewed or referenced biomedical literature assessing non‑thermal
chronic health effects from smart meters.
 4. Correspondence between the Authority and Ministry of Health, MBIE, or
regional health bodies relating to smart meter rollout and health risk
oversight.

 

As your requests are on the same topic and received in short success, we
are treating them as one request under the Act. However, as it stands,
your requests are very broad and would require substantial manual
collation and research to find and collate information in scope of this
request across 15 years (from 2010).

 

We are writing to ask if you would be willing to refine down to a shorter
and specific time period and narrow the scope further to enable us to best
search for and collate information that may be in scope. In particular,
are you willing to refine the parts of your request related to
correspondence with other agencies, records of public enquiries/reports
from consumers, and complaints. This is because we often correspond with
other agencies and the public on a variety of topics and searching through
all the records across a broad time frame to determine what is or isn’t in
scope would be administratively burdensome.

 

Please note, you do not have to refine your request, but requests that
require substantial collation and research are likely to be refused under
section 18(f) of the Act and we want to work with you to avoid this.
Additionally, we may need to seek further refinement once we have clarity
on what information you are seeking. Please note that any requests for
refinement or clarification made within the first seven working days of a
request will reset the timeframe, as laid out in the Act. However, we will
still endeavour to have a response to you as soon as reasonably practice
and no later than 20 working days after your refinement.

 

Please let us know by 14 August 2025 if you are willing to refine and if
so, how you wish to narrow the scope.

 

Ngā mihi nui,

 

Ashley
Senior Ministerial Advisor

 

[1][IMG]

 

Level 7, AON Centre, 1 Willis Street
PO Box 10041, Wellington 6143, New Zealand
[2]www.ea.govt.nz

 

[3][IMG]  [4]linkedin-icon [5]YT-small

 

"The information contained in this transmission is confidential. It is
intended for the named addressee only. If you are not the named addressee
you may not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance upon this
transmission."

References

Visible links
1. http://www.ea.govt.nz/
2. http://www.ea.govt.nz/
3. https://twitter.com/ElectricityAuth
4. https://www.linkedin.com/company/1451242...
5. https://www.youtube.com/user/ElectricityNZ

Kia ora Spencer

 

Thank you for your request of 2 August 2025, under the Official
Information Act 1982.  

 

Please find attached the Electricity Authority’s response. If you have any
questions regarding our response, please don’t hesitate to contact me.  

 

Ngâ mihi nui,

 

Alex Shearer ([1]she/her)
Senior Ministerial Advisor

 

[2][IMG]

 

Level 7, AON Centre, 1 Willis Street
PO Box 10041, Wellington 6143, New Zealand
[3]www.ea.govt.nz

 

[4][IMG]  [5]linkedin-icon [6]YT-small

 

"The information contained in this transmission is confidential. It is
intended for the named addressee only. If you are not the named addressee
you may not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance upon this
transmission."

References

Visible links
1. https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/guidan...
2. http://www.ea.govt.nz/
3. http://www.ea.govt.nz/
4. https://twitter.com/ElectricityAuth
5. https://www.linkedin.com/company/1451242...
6. https://www.youtube.com/user/ElectricityNZ

Kia ora,
Thank you for your email. 

If you are making a request under the Official Information Act 1982, you
can expect to receive an official acknowledgement email within 5 working
days. This is an automated email and not an official acknowledgement. If
you do not hear from us within 5 working days, please contact us by
calling +64 4 460 8860.

If this is a general enquiry, please email [email address].

Ngā mihi,

Electricity Authority
Te Mana Hiko
 
Level 7, AON Centre, 1 Willis Street
PO Box 10041, Wellington 6143, New Zealand
[1]www.ea.govt.nz
"The information contained in this transmission is confidential. It is
intended for the named addressee only. If you are not the named addressee
you may not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance upon this
transmission."

References

Visible links
1. http://www.ea.govt.nz/

Kia ora Spencer

Thank you for your email. We have checked the PDF document sent to you on Friday and have found no issue with it and also note it is accessible via FYI.org. Let us know if it is still not working and we can send in an alternative format. Do you have a preference for the format used?

Ngā mihi nui,

Alex Shearer (she/her)
Senior Ministerial Advisor

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Kia ora Spencer,

Thank you for your email, which raises a number of additional matters. We will come back to you shortly with a more detailed response.

Ngâ mihi nui,

Alex Shearer (she/her)
Senior Ministerial Advisor

Level 7, AON Centre, 1 Willis Street
PO Box 10041, Wellington 6143, New Zealand
http://www.ea.govt.nz/

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Kia ora Spencer,
 
Thank you for your email. I will respond to each part in turn below.
 
1) Reconciliation with known ESR–EA correspondence (s 18(e))
 
Your response refused several parts under section 18(e) on the basis that
no information is held. However, PHF Science (formerly ESR) has released
two 2012 ESR–EA email threads concerning the EA Smart Meter FAQ wording
and RF exposure assumptions. Please either:
 
* confirm those ESR–EA threads (and any related
follow-ups/drafts/attachments) are held by EA and provide them; or
* if not held, explain why (e.g., disposal/archiving), including when and
under what authority they were destroyed or transferred.
 
Neither of your previous requests (OIA-25-0019 or OIA-25-0020) requested
correspondence between ESR (PHF Science) and the Electricity Authority
(the Authority), nor did this fall in scope of any other parts of your
request. We have since received a new request from you asking for this
information (and we will be responding to this separately).
 
2) Confirmation of searches and systems
 
Please confirm the repositories and systems searched for my request,
including (as applicable):
 
* EA document/records management systems;
* email archives (keyword/date-parameter searches used);
* complaints/CRM systems or service-desk tools;
* Code compliance/enforcement registers relating to Clause 11.27; and
* shared drives/collaboration tools used for website FAQ drafting and
approvals.
  For each, please state the search terms and date ranges applied.
 
The Authority has a range of databases which are checked to confirm if any
information is in scope of an OIA request.
 
In terms of the parts of your request that were refused under section
18(e) of the Act, on the basis that the information did not exist, we
searched for anything related to smart meters that would fall in scope of
those parts of your request, and nothing was found in scope.
 
For the parts of your request refused under section 18(f) of the Act, on
the basis that it would require substantial collation and research, we
felt the search was too broad without a timeframe, so we requested
refinement before searching. As you did not refine within the timeframe,
this was not undertaken. However, we note that below you have refined your
request to a manageable timeframe, and we will be conducting a search for
this information on our systems and databases.
 
3) Refined request to address s 18(f)
 
3.1 Health-related smart meter complaints (1 Jan 2018 – 1 Sep 2025)
Records (or a summary table) of public inquiries, complaints, or disputes
received by the EA from consumers alleging health symptoms following
smart-meter installation (e.g., headaches, fatigue, electromagnetic
hypersensitivity). Please include for each case (to the extent reasonably
retrievable): date received, brief nature of concern, status
(open/resolved), and outcome/resolution category. Personal identifiers are
not sought.
 
3.2 Clause 11.27 Code actions (1 Jan 2018 – 1 Sep 2025) Any data, reports,
notices, or decisions issued or recorded by the EA under Clause 11.27 of
the Electricity Industry Participation Code 2010 in relation to
smart-meter installations where health complaints or EMF/RF safety
concerns were a factor. If no such actions exist, please confirm “nil”.
 
We are treating this as a new request for information under the Official
Information Act 1982 (noting you did not provide a refined request within
the required timeframes).
 
As your email was received on 1 September 2025, the due date for response
is 29 September 2025, being 20 working days after the day we received your
request. However, as this request still requires an extensive search to
ensure we locate all information in scope, and consideration of personal
information (which would need to be redacted) we are notifying you of an
extension of this timeframe, to 7 October 2025.
 
If you have any queries, please feel free to contact me by emailing
[1][Electricity Authority request email].  
 
Ngâ mihi nui,
 
Alex Shearer (she/her)
Senior Ministerial Advisor
 
 

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