Tuesday, 28 June 2022 13:55

Power plant to close

Written by  Staff Reporters
Contact Energy chief executive Mike Fuge. Contact Energy chief executive Mike Fuge.

Energy company Contact is closing its 44-megawatt Te Rapa power station in June next year.

The Te Rapa plant, operating since 1999, is a gas-fuelled co-generation plant, providing steam and electricity to Fonterra's Te Rapa dairy factory, and directing surplus electricity back to the grid.

Contact says its contract to supply Fonterra with electricity expires in June 2023. Fonterra will acquire the plant's auxiliary boiler and will continue to use these assets for its dairy operations beyond June next year, but the gas turbine used to generate electricity at Te Rapa will be retired.

Contact says the decision to close the plant will reduce its long-term scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 20% per annum.

Contact chief executive Mike Fuge said it had been an unsettling time, but it was good to be able to provide the 16 staff at Te Rapa with more certainty.

"It is business as usual until June next year, and everybody in our team at Te Rapa will be looked after. After the power station closes, there will be some opportunities for people to move across Fonterra's Te Rapa team or be redeployed elsewhere within Contact."

More like this

Featured

National

DairyNZ Farmers Forum underway

Over 300 farmers and rural professionals have gathered in Hamilton for the first DairyNZ Farmers Forum for this year.

Machinery & Products

Shearing legend hooked on CanAm

Sir David Fagan, world-renowned competitive sheep shearer with 642 shearing titles worldwide and a knighthood to his name, now runs…

50 years of tractor pull

This year, the Fieldays Tractor Pull, in association with PTS Logistics, mark a major milestone – 50 years of crowd-thrilling…

The Wrangler's birthday bash

It's the Wrangler Limited’s 30th birthday and to celebrate the milestone a prototype of the E Series Wrangler - a…

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Free speech

OPINION: The Free Speech Union is taking this one too far.

Drug survey

OPINION: New national data from The Drug Detection Agency (TDDA), a leading workplace drug tester, shows methamphetamine (meth) use is…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter