Trusts to explore geothermal resources

OPPORTUNITIES: Grow Rotorua chief executive Francis Pauwels believes the geothermal workshop will be of interest to a range of organisations.

Maori land trust representatives will be paying close attention at next week's geothermal workshop in Rotorua.

Representatives from several local trusts are among those registered for the Geothermal Direct Heat for Commercial Applications Workshop, to be held at the Distinction Hotel on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The workshop is part of the Bay of Connections Energy Strategy project in association with Grow Rotorua, Kawerau Industrial Symbiosis and Enterprise Great Lake Taupo.

Pukeroa Oruawhata Holdings' Peter Faulkner will be attending, as will those from trusts his company works with.

He said investigating opportunities for geothermal direct heat uses was part of an obligation trusts had to extract the best value out of their land and resources.

"It's an opportunity to make ourselves aware of what's out there."

He said the cost of setting up a geothermal plant was "stupendous" whereas there may be opportunities to use geothermal heat directly at a much lower cost.

Mr Faulkner said Maori trusts had to focus on "getting value out of the whenua (land) for the benefit for the owners".

Scientist Dr Charlotte Severne will speak at the workshop about how Maori trusts and incorporations can develop geothermal resources.

Dr Severne said historically Maori lived and utilised geothermal manifestations in their everyday lives.

She will discuss the types of direct use opportunities for Ahu whenua trusts (the most common Maori land trust) and Maori communities today, the type of partnerships they needed to consider and the structures they needed to put in place to realise these.

"I am going to try and focus on the skills and decision-making for benchmarking governance decisions in these Maori organisations," said Dr Severne.

Day one of the workshop will consist of a range of speakers, including keynote speaker Dr John Lund from the Geo-Heat Centre at the Oregon Institute of Technology.

On day two, participants will visit local businesses that are utilising geothermal heat.

For more information and to register go to www.bayofconnections.com/geothermal or email marksmith@growrotorua.com.