New Zealand:

Contact Energy Ltd.’s Te Mihi Power Station Harnesses Sustainable Geothermal Energy (POWER Magazine)

Contact Energy Ltd.’s Te Mihi Power Station is the winner of POWER’s 2013 Marmaduke Award for excellence in power plant problem-solving.

Te Mihi Power Station

In early 2007, Contact Energy announced plans to invest up to $1 billion in the construction of new geothermal plants in the Taupo region, located near the center of the North Island. The latest addition to Contact’s renewable portfolio is the two-unit 166 MWe (159 MW net) Te Mihi Power Station.

Contact CEO Dennis Barnes says its investment in Te Mihi reflects the company’s view that geothermal is New Zealand’s most cost-effective new baseload generation. Barnes identified the importance of Te Mihi to ratepayers when he said, “The additional 114 megawatts is expected to be required by the market by 2013 as economic growth resumes and will also contribute to lowering Contact’s average cost of generation.” The total cost of Te Mihi is estimated to be close to $623 million. A second project at Tauhara is in the development pipeline, with other projects seeking permits or in the reservoir exploration phase.

As this article was being prepared (early July 2013), commissioning work on both units was in full swing and will likely be completed by the time you are reading this article. Performance testing for both units is the next project milestone, followed by a one-month reliability run prior to commercial operation.

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