THE Tampa berthed at Port Taranaki last week, the biggest ship by gross tonnage ever to dock at the port, delivering modern generation equipment for Contact Energy's new $250 million gas-fired peaking power station at Stratford. The ship, which weighs 67 thousand tonnes, has onboard two generators, which have travelled fromEurope to be installed at Contact's Stratford site later in the year. "The arrival of the generators marks an important milestone for the Stratford Peaker project, which will play a key role in providing New Zealand with a secure supply of electricity when it comes on stream in winter next year," says Contact Managing Director David Baldwin. "The peaking project is the biggest power station under development in New Zealand at the moment and will have the capacity to power around 200,000 homes. "The Stratford plant is a fast-start gas-fired power station which can go from cold to full load in just 10 minutes. By contrast, the recently decommissioned New Plymouth power station could take up to 15 hours to reach full generation output." Mr Baldwin says the high level of flexibility the peakers provide makes them perfect for filling in gaps when the wind isn't blowing, hydro lakes are low or when electricity demand is high. "This project will ensure we get the very best value from our gas resources and will support a growing renewable electricity generation base," he says. The Stratford peaking project is being developed hand in hand with the neighbouring Ahuroa gas storage facility, which will enable Contact to store natural gas in an underground reservoir, for use when New Zealand most needs it. "The two projects together represent $500 million of investment in critical energy infrastructure and in the New Zealand economy at a time that we really need it," he said.
