Half a billion dollar investment nears finish

Half a billion dollar investment nears finishing line

Genesis Energy’s new combined cycle gas turbine, e3p, has already supplied 65.5GWhs into the electricity market during its commissioning process – enough to power 8,000 homes for a year.

The $520 million project at Huntly is nearing completion with final performance testing and a 30 day reliability run to finish before the contractor – Mitsubishi Corporation – hands over the plant to Genesis Energy operators.

In recent weeks the 385MW plant has been run for up to five day periods at 100%, demonstrating its reliability and stability under full load.

Genesis Energy’s Chief Executive, Murray Jackson said the introduction of e3p into the electricity market on a permanent basis shortly will greatly increase the security of supply of the system, particularly as hydro lake levels have been dropping since mid March.

E3p will not just add much needed new generation to the market but will also enable Genesis Energy to reduce its carbon footprint. Once fully commissioned, e3p will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by one million tonne per annum that would otherwise have been emitted by the less efficient coal-burning Huntly Power Station. That amounts to around 10% of CO2 emissions from all power generation in New Zealand.

“We believe natural gas will enable a transition to lower CO2 emissions and should be central to all greenhouse gas policies. It produces about half the greenhouse emissions of coal-fired power generation and is the preferred source of new base load generation in most countries across the world. The major advantage of gas is its capacity to make a substantial difference to greenhouse emissions in the short term while other medium and longer term solutions are being explored,” said Mr Jackson.

ENDS

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