Contact Energy has filed resource consent applications for the second phase of its development of the Tauhara geothermal resource near Taupo.Contact managing director David Baldwin said the 250 megawatt Tauhara 2 development was a particularly important e
Contact Energy has filed resource consent applications for the second phase of its development of the Tauhara geothermal resource near Taupo.
Contact managing director David Baldwin said the 250 megawatt Tauhara 2 development was a particularly important energy project for New Zealand.
Contact has requested that the resource consent application be considered under the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) process which speeds up the potential award of consents to within nine months of the application being accepted by the EPA.
"Once developed and commissioned, Tauhara 2 will generate enough renewable baseload electricity to power a quarter of a million homes. The development of the project will represent investment of more than $1 billion and will make an important contribution to a secure and increasingly renewable supply of electricity for New Zealand consumers."
Mr Baldwin said a significant amount of work had gone into the development of the 2 application, including extensive reservoir modelling and testing, community consultation and assessment of potential impacts.
In particular, the application was based upon a comprehensive and world-leading study of land subsidence in geothermal areas that Contact has undertaken over the past two years, he said.
The results of this work gave Contact confidence that land subsidence would not be an issue.
Tauhara 2 will follow Contact's first stage of development of the Tauhara steam field, a 23 megawatt geothermal binary power station currently under construction in Taupo. The company also holds consents for a 220 megawatt geothermal power station at Te Mihi.
