Meridian Energy boss Keith Turner - whose company on Monday pulled the plug on the NZ$1.2 billion Project Aqua in the South Island - told the Utilicon conference in Auckland on Tuesday that coal was the most realistic answer to New Zealand's power problems.
However, Contact Energy boss Steve Barrett told the same conference that gas remained the best option, considering this government's greenhouse gas obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.
Genesis Power boss Murray Jackson has outlined plans for a possible new 500MW coal-fired station at the company's Huntly site, while Mighty River Power says it's studying options for a new gas or coal-fired power station at Marsden Pt, Northland.
"We are inevitably heading towards major coal development. I say, 'Get on with it'," Turner told the conference. If new coal projects were not soon underway, the country could be facing blackouts in dry years.
However, Turner said Meridian would remain focused on renewable energy sources, with no plans to build any thermal plant of its own.
Barrett said it was possible indigenous gas could fill the looming energy gap, though discovery rates would need to improve. Additional coal-fired plant would make it difficult for New Zealand to meet its Kyoto commitments.
"The supply-demand balance in New Zealand is becoming critical", Barrett added.
Mighty River Power boss Doug Heffernan said his company was looking into gas and coal options for the site occupied by the mothballed Marsden B 250MW oil-fired plant built in the late 1970s. Mighty River Power wanted a plant capable of generating 240-500MW on that site.
Jackson said Genesis had commissioned a feasibility study into a 500MW station at Huntly planned for 2008-09. It is believed Waikato or King Country coal fields would be the most likely sources.
Meanwhile, "evergreen" Energy Minister Pete Hodgson refuses to yet concede there is a crisis though, as he told Utilicon delegates, "facing the future without Maui is probably the biggest energy challenge ahead of us".
Hodgson said sufficient additional capacity, about 843MW, was already planned to 2007, including wind, hydro, geothermal, gas and oil-distillate(reserve generation).
However, McDouall Stuart executive director Chris Stone cautions against such optimism.
"There are indeed several projects proposed but there are fishhooks - Genesis' E3P project will use Kupe gas, but Contact's Otahuhu B and TCC will be progressively starved of gas. And there are no new gas reserves available yet.
"The gas supply-demand imbalance is on us already and from what we know to be in place now, including all the renewables, and the known decline of gas supply from all known fields, there is a huge shortfall to fill," Stone told EnergyReview.Net from Wellington.
