Contact Energy’s 174MW geothermal power station at Tauhara will provide 3.5 percent of the country’s electricity - enough to power around 200,000 Kiwi homes. It began operating in May 2024.
Contact Energy’s 174MW geothermal power station at Tauhara will provide 3.5 percent of the country’s electricity - enough to power around 200,000 Kiwi homes. It began operating in May 2024.
Contact’s new geothermal power station on the outskirts of Taupō is now up and running, and capable of producing enough electricity to run the equivalent of 200,000 homes.
At a cost of $924 million, it is one of the biggest power projects in recent times and would soonbe followed by other geothermal projects in the area.
The opening of the Tauhara power station came just a week after Contact announced it would build a new 101MW geothermal plant, Te Mihi Stage 2, as the first step in replacing its 1950s-built Wairakei geothermal plant.
Contact’s seventh geothermal power station, Te Huka 3 is in the final stages of commissioning and would generate enough renewable electricity to power 60,000 homes.
Contact CEO Mike Fuge said geothermal energy played a crucial role in creating a reliable supply of electricity and New Zealand was leading the way with technology and “ingenuity”.
“So it’s exciting to expand our fleet of geothermal assets as well as to have two more geothermal power stations on the way.”
Contact CEO Mike Fuge speaks at the opening of the company's Tauhara geothermal power station. Photo / Dan Hutchinson
The power station took three and a half years to build and began providing renewable energy to the grid on May 6. It involved 2.65 million work hours by 4,001 people from 27 countries.
It has been operating at 160 megawatts continuously and once fully up and running it would produce 174MW.
Prime minister Christopher Luxon was on hand to officially open the power station and to tour the facility.
He said it was a very significant renewable energy project for Taupō and the country and was expected to displace more than half a million tonnes of carbon emmissions each year, or the equivalent of taking 220,000 petrol cars off the road.
“New Zealand as you all know is blessed with abundant renewable energy resources and through renewable electrictrification we can supercharge our economic growth, tackle climate change and bolster and improve our energy security.
He said the Government’s goal was to double New Zeland’s renewable electricty energy generation to make it abundant and affordable.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon speaks at the opening of Contact's new Tauhara geothermal power station. Photo / Dan Hutchinson
The Government was also easing restrictions on lines companies owning generation assets.
“As more New Zealanders begin to use electricity in more aspects of their lives, like charging EV’s and switching from gas in their homes, and as Kiwi businesses need more data centres, it’s extremely clear we need much, much, much more renewable electricty to meet the rising demand.”
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Enterprise’s quarterly energy report notes geothermal generation reached a record high of 2143 gigawatt hours, between April and June this year, with 19% of the country’s energy coming from geothermal sources during the autumn months.
The Taupō District was also well placed to benefit from an annoucment on November 14 that the Government would ring-fence up to $60 million from the Regional Infrastructure Fund to explore the potential of supercritical geothermal technology.
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Science, Innovation, and Technology Minister Judith Collins said a secure and resilient energy supply was a priority for the Coalition Government.
Geothermal energy is sourced from extremely hot rock heated by magma.
At present, conventional geothermal wells are drilled to a maximum depth of about 3.5km. Scientists believe that by drilling beyond this, possibly to 6km deep, more energy would be available, known as supercritical geothermal energy.
