Artificial? I would suggest demand is artificially being propped up by Tiwai. Remember the $30M National pumped in only a few years back?
One of the main reasons electricity prices are very high in NZ & climbing (or so we are told) is to meet peak demand of a couple of hours a day.
Tiwai closing would help resolve this.
Personally I don't think it will close, but who knows.
As mentioned before.
Tiwai has been a known risk for investors for sometime & its a bit rich to expect the rest of NZ to subsidise your dividends.