Solving Auckland's power problems?

Todd Energy has put forward its solution to solving Auckland's power problems, proposing the construction of three gas-fired power plants within Auckland itself. This would make Transpower's national grid upgrade unnecessary for a few more years, and in addition result in a more efficient network as power would be generated close to demand. It also has the advantage of Aucklanders bearing the environmental cost of their own consumption; demands by Aucklanders for transmission lines and coal-fired plants elsewhere effectively dump the costs of Aucklanders' power usage on other communities.

Todd doesn't have to worry about security of supply because they already own a large chunk of New Zealand's natural gas reserves. If they go into the electricity business, then they get to burn it themselves, incidently hiking the costs for other generators - so they win on that front too. But despite this, they're still sticking their hand out for a subsidy, claiming that "some form of additional funding will be required". To which the response should be to tell them to bugger off. Gas generation is relatively cheap to construct, there's little need for additional infrastructure (there's plenty of capacity on the gas pipe into Auckland, at least south of Westgate), and there are no issues with security of supply (which was the justification for the government's agreement with Genesis over the E3P station at Huntly). And there's certainly no question of it being competitive to run, even with the carbon tax. In short, the market is perfectly capable of supplying this; a subsidy would only be enriching the Todd family at the expense of the New Zealand taxpayer.