Electricity companies instead of consumers could be made to bear the costs of forced outages, in an effort to secure power supplies in times of shortage.
The recommendation is one of eight in a independent review, ordered by the Electricity Commission into how the electricity market handled last year's extremely dry winter.
Commission chair David Caygill says another recommendation is a review of the cost efficiency of the Government-owned Whirinaki reserve plant, near Napier and possibly relocating it to the South Island or converting parts of it to run on natural gas.
Mr Caygill says the logistics of doing so are not clear at this stage.
Public submissions close on 20 February.
