Dual fuel conversion

By CHRIS DANIELS

Contact Energy plans to convert its ageing New Plymouth station to a dual fuel plant, allowing it to easily run on either natural gas or oil.

The New Plymouth station is the second-largest thermal power plant in New Zealand. Genesis Energy's Huntly station is the biggest.

With the first of its five generating units installed in 1974, the station can generate 450 megawatts and was originally designed to use either fuel oil or gas.

However it has only really ever used gas.

The refurbishment, expected to cost less than $10 million, will allow the station to rapidly switch between using gas and fuel oil to fire its boilers.

Although oil is at least twice as expensive than gas as a fuel for power stations, an ability to quickly switch to oil will allow the station to generate electricity when, as happened yesterday, the Maui gasfield stops production.

Announcing the plan at the annual shareholders meeting in Christchurch yesterday, chairman Phil Pryke said restoring its capacity to run on liquid fuel was "a key ingredient in our planning to deal with possible gas shortages over the next few years".

Maui gas is due to run out in 2007, when it is likely to be replaced by gas produced from smaller, more expensive fields.