Quote Originally Posted by Waikaka View Post
I suppose the problem is you might want to burn the gas at Huntly but you wont be able to, as without a huge rebuild the Rankins just wont last to 2040.

Last winter Genesis needed to buy hugely expensive gas off Methanex and luckily for them Balance had a shut down so they could get enough gas. Presumably they had to pay out the nose to make it worth it for the industrials to reallocate that gas but that wont be guaranteed every year.
Then where will the grid stabilising power come from? Contact is shutting down their gas generation. Huntly is the " last man standing". Maybe a little more geothermal 100-200MW? That's only 10-20% of what's needed to replace Huntly. Like I said, keeping the lights on is a political necessity that trumps everything else. Relying on technology that hasn't been developed yet is a big gamble. I expect the government to underwrite R&M costs for keeping Huntly available for as long as its needed

That gas purchase can't have been too expensive, Genesis had a huge stock of thermal coal that wasn't burnt. And the way NZ power market operates, prices are set using the most expensive generation source. Hence why NZ electricity market is always managed "on the brink of shortage"