Call for Govt to start on renewables
WELLINGTON: New Zealand needs to get its renewables build under way if it is to maximise the economic benefit of shifting industry and transport to lowercarbon energy, Refining NZ chief executive Mike Fuge says.
The country had the engineering capability to deliver new projects — everything from wind farms to hydrogen — but risked being held back by policy uncertainty.
Firms, including the refinery, were ready, willing and able to invest to help meet the country’s 2050 climate change targets and had the skilled staff to deliver on that, he said.
The Marsden Point refinery had a strong cadre of process engineering, but there was a generation of younger skilled workers there and around the country that needed more challenge.
Without a sustainable level of ongoing development activity the country risked further erosion of its specialist technical capabilities.
‘‘We must excite that next generation,’’ Mr Fuge said.
‘‘If we don’t provide them that excitement then they will go overseas.’’
Refining NZ was the country’s only oil refinery.
It employed about 650 staff and contractors and produced about threequarters of the petrol, diesel and jet fuel used here.
It was a major electricity and gas user and was also the country’s biggest maker, and user, of pure hydrogen.
The firm last year signalled its interest in increasing its hydro gen production, potentially tied to solar or other renewable generation, either for local transport use or export.
It was aiming to detail that in a strategic plan expected midyear.
Mr Fuge joined the company in August, having spent four years running Melbournebased Pacific Hydro.
The firm, acquired by China’s State Power Investment Corp in 2015, has developed wind, solar and hydro projects in Australia, Chile and Brazil.
Fuge had seen the premium that Australia’s energy policy debacle had added to sovereign risk there and he was worried constant changes to the business ‘‘playing field’’ in New Zealand risked doing the same.
The Government’s offshore exploration ban ‘‘came out of left field’’ and had spooked investors, he said.
Nor did he believe the Electricity Authority’s transmission pricing reform was worth the delay it had already caused to renewable development or the risk premium.
He said it had probably added to it in the minds of international investors.
A potentially drawnout reform of the Resource Management Act risked further delay to projects the Government needed to be getting under way to meet its longterm climate change targets, Mr Fuge said.
‘‘They need to focus less on 2050 and focus more on actually making a start,’’ he said.
New Zealand has more than two gigawatts of consented wind, geothermal and marine energy projects available for development. — BusinessDesk