Marsden B's second chance

By CHRIS DANIELS energy writer

State-owned Mighty River Power says it will apply for resource consent to fire up the mothballed Marsden B power station, after engineers reported the plant was in good condition.

The 250MW, oil-fired station was built near the Marsden Pt oil refinery in the late 1970s but was mothballed before generating any electricity.

In light of this winter's low rainfall putting pressure on the southern hydro lakes, Mighty River began investigating whether Marsden B could be commissioned, with the aim of providing emergency reserve generation.

The company will have to spend between $90 million and $100 million to bring the station on line.

Chief executive Doug Heffernan said a new chimney needed to be built (the original chimney was knocked down just six years ago) along with new fuel lines and tanks.

New electronics were also needed to bring the station's control room up to standard.

Resource consents relating to air emissions and cooling water were now needed for the station, he said.

"The technical report just completed is no surprises at all, other than pleasant ones about how good a condition the plant is in despite sitting around for so long," said Heffernan. "That's been really reassuring."

Mighty River is waiting for final details of the Government's dry-year reserve plan before embarking on further engineering work developing the station.

Heffernan said Marsden B was an ideal solution to providing dry-year reserve generation capacity in line with the Government's plan.

If all went according to plan, the station could be ready to generate electricity by winter 2005.