The long-awaited Offshore Renewable Energy Bill passed its third reading on 30 June 2026 and the Offshore Renewable Energy Act 2026 came into force last week (“the Act“), marking a significant step in the potential development of an offshore renewable energy sector in New Zealand. The Act establishes a permitting regime to facilitate the development of offshore renewable energy projects.
The Select Committee amendments (discussed in our previous July 2025 article) have been adopted in the new Act. These are generally positive developments, providing greater clarity, flexibility and certainty for Offshore Renewable Energy (“ORE“) participants. In particular, the Act as passed includes a framework to enable the management of competition between ORE and non-ORE activities, with the applications of the potential projects to be determined by the relevant responsible Ministers.
The Government has deliberately aligned many aspects of the regime with Australia’s Offshore Electricity Infrastructure framework which reduces regulatory learning costs, legal uncertainty, transaction costs and developer risk. It also allows Australian developers and supply chains to expand into New Zealand more easily.