New Zealand has banned the construction of new state owned coal and gas power plants as part of their aim to generate 90% of their power from renewable sources by 2025, according to ecotality.com. This ban will soon be extended to the private sector. Currently, 70% of their power comes from wind, hydro and geothermal generators.

“…The hope is the ban will speed construction in wind turbines and steam fields.

The ban affects two gas fired power plants currently under consideration. Genesis Power, the government owned utility, and Contact, New Zealand’s largest commercial power company, had planned to spend NZ$1 billion on the projects. Now the companies will need to look for renewable sources for their investments. Contact’s share prices rose on the Wellington stock exchange with news of the ban.

In New Zealand gas prices have been rising and gas production falling over the last 5 years. The higher gas cost has made renewable power cost competitive and Contact has spend NZ$2 billion on wind and geo-thermal electricity production capability. The company want the government to speed up approval of two new steam plants on the North Island.”

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This entry was posted on October 16th, 2007 at 13:10 (GMT) and is filed under Alternative Energy, Emissions Reductions, Policy . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.