WELLINGTON: Energy company Genesis Energy said yesterday it will close New Zealand’s two remaining coal-fired electricity generation units by 2018, effectively ending the country’s use of coal to generate electricity.
The remaining two generators are both located at the Huntly Power Station in Waikato on New Zealand’s North Island. The plant’s two other generators, which are gas-fired, will continue to operate.
Albert Brantley, chief executive of Genesis Energy, said the falling cost of renewable technology was a major factor in the decision to retire the generators.
“The development of lower cost renewable generation, principally wind and geothermal, investment in the HVDC link, and relatively flat growth in consumer and industrial demand for electricity have combined to reinforce the decision to retire the remaining Rankine units, which will deliver further operational efficiencies to Genesis Energy,” he said in a statement.
The New Zealand energy and resources minister Simon Bridges said the decision highlights the growth of the country’s renewable energy industry.
He said the country’s energy industry must now focus on investing further in renewables. “New Zealand’s abundant energy resources give us a renewable energy advantage that we need to make to the most of,” he said. “This decision creates further opportunities to do that.”
The closure of the generators will have a considerable impact on the country’s CO2 emissions. At their peak the two generators emitted around 5,000 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year – around five per cent of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
New Zealand has pledged to cuts its emissions by 11 per cent from 1990 levels by 2030, ahead of the international climate change negotiations taking place in Paris later this year.
It has also pledged to generate 90 per cent of the country’s electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Currently about 75 per cent of New Zealand’s electricity generation comes from renewable sources, the majority of which is hydropower.
