Waikato regional economic profile - Waikato Regional Council
Waikato regional economic profile - Waikato Regional Council
Waikato regional economic profile - Waikato Regional Council
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4.3.3 GasSolid Energy New Zealand Ltd has also been investigating recovering naturallyoccurring methane gas from deep, difficult-to-mine coal seams as a source of industrialenergy in the <strong>Waikato</strong> region since 2005. Initial coal seam gas (CSG) trials in the<strong>Waikato</strong> extracted high quality gas – 98 per cent methane – which has been used togenerate electricity for the national grid. Although these trials delivered significantknowledge about the technology, they were undertaken within a confined area. SolidEnergy New Zealand Ltd has since been granted resource consents by WRC to takethe next step to carry out CSG production testing. 185The supply of natural gas inNew Zealand is produced in theTaranaki region from 11 fields –with production dominated sincethe late 1970s by the Maui field.186<strong>Waikato</strong> is a major consumer ofreticulated natural gas, as wellas an important corridor for thegas pipeline from Taranaki toother regions.There are over 2500 km of highpressuretransmission pipelinesacross the North Island, asshown in figure 66. These arepredominantly owned by Vector(which acquired the Natural GasCorporation), and the Maui Figure 66: Map of gas pipelines 188pipeline extending from SouthTaranaki to Huntly is owned byMaui Development Ltd. Morethan half the distributionpipeline and serviceconnections are in <strong>Waikato</strong>. 187One of the largest users of this gas is the Huntly Power Station. The original 1000 MWHuntly Power Station was built as a dual-fired plant, capable of operating on both coaland gas. However, with the decline of the Maui gas field after 2003, Genesis Energyswitched the power station to run mainly on coal. Overall gas consumption at theHuntly plants was boosted with the addition of the 48 MW open-cycle gas turbinegenerator, plus the August 2007 opening of the new 400 MW combined cycle gas-firedplant (Unit 5), which uses gas from new gas fields such as Kupe and Pohukura. 189Apart from Huntly, gas is also used in dual-fuel operations (along with coal) at acogeneration plant, operated by Contact Energy at Fonterra’s Te Rapa dairy factory.Apart from electricity generation, gas is used in a range of industries from fertiliserproduction through to the dairy industry. 190Disruption to gas supply in 2011 highlighted both the dependence of several industrialusers in the <strong>Waikato</strong> region on this resource and the vulnerability of the gas pipeline.185Solid Energy New Zealand Ltd (2011a, p. 1).186<strong>Waikato</strong> <strong>Regional</strong> Energy Forum (2009, p. 93).187<strong>Waikato</strong> <strong>Regional</strong> Energy Forum (2009, p. 90).188Vector Ltd (2009) Transmission pipeline map.189<strong>Waikato</strong> <strong>Regional</strong> Energy Forum (2009, p. 91).190<strong>Waikato</strong> <strong>Regional</strong> Energy Forum (2009, p. 92).Doc # 2069885 Page 61