Mokihinui .Woz up there? and do we need so much of this electrickery

[MSTRS:Me]

...They've put a stack of money aside for it already.

From the AC Current account?

[James Deuce]

From the AC Current account?

Nah the 4 billion they overcharged us.

[MSTRS:Me]

Heat pump sales are booming and I'm told that they make a big difference to the power bill. In the direction of up.

That depends on what you currently pay for other types of heating. +$50/month is way cheaper than the firewood we used to rely on.

[Jantar]

.
. So Murch. has to foot the bill & potentially stands to lose far,far more than these schemes will ever make for 30 lousy MW?......

Did you know that N.Z could save 6000mw a year with an efficency programme? Thats twice what ALL the proposed schemes are hoping to produce without a single dam. Go figure!!...

Mmmm. Not often we see the data to contradict the claim in the same post. A 30 MW power station at a very conservative 50% load factor (ie its average generation is 50% of its peak) would produce 30 x 24 x 365 x 50% = 262800 MWh per year. This is considerably more that the 6000 MWh per year you claim we could save from efficiency gains.

Or perhaps you dont mean an energy figure of 6000 MWh per year, but an actual power useage saving of 6000 MW (without the per year attached). This may be possible but as it is equal to the country's actual demand of 6000 MW that means using no electricity at all. Is this really achievable just through efficiency gains?

The fact remains that we need more generation in the north and west of the South Island, and we need it soon. Otherwise power restrictions or blackouts will soon affect Christchurch, Nelson and the west coast.

[puddytat]

Yeah you maybe right it may have been the 6000mw figure, but Im just going on what I head last night. The 30 mw was from one of the 3 propoosed dams on the Matakitaki.....but I stick by my main point that for a lousy 7 million they are considering putting at risk a towns income of 27 million, from tourism alone.
I will go searching & try & get my facts straight.

[mashman]

So are you all essentially saying, it's us (or whoever needs all of this electricity) or just one more ecosystem?

[Jantar]

So are you all essentially saying, it's us (or whoever needs all of this electricity) or just one more ecosystem?

Pretty much sums it up. Or a coal fired station on the west coast rather than hydro, either will help fix the problem.

[Jantar]

Yeah you maybe right it may have been the 6000mw figure, but Im just going on what I head last night. The 30 mw was from one of the 3 propoosed dams on the Matakitaki.....but I stick by my main point that for a lousy 7 million they are considering putting at risk a towns income of 27 million, from tourism alone.
I will go searching & try & get my facts straight.

A 30 MW dam and power station will cost considerably more than $7m. Try more like $70m for a very cheap one.

$7m will buy a 2 MW scheme without any resource consent costs.

[puddytat]

Yeah, but so would shitloads of hot water cylinder wraps,compulsory solar water units for new houses or windmills....

The 7mill. figure is the revenue per year that it would generate at wholesale rates, not the cost of the scheme...sorry if I wasnt clear on that.
So what I was trying to say was that stuffing up our tourism here in Murch.for 7 mill a year does not compute against the 27 mill in tourist income from the likes of fishing lodges, commercial rafting, NZ Kajak school,etc. Most of that comes from the high end market thru the Lodges...we get a lot of very rich folk from all around the world who for them ,money is not a problem.
Mohikinui will only have a life span of 100 years as it will fill up with silt & debris...then what?
Jantar,I too see the need for more generation capacity, but surely gains from efficency should be tried first.You can get a lot of cylinder wraps for the price of a dam.

[sAsLEX]

Pretty much sums it up. Or a coal fired station on the west coast rather than hydro, either will help fix the problem.

COAL!

You planet killing bastard!





yes I know modern coal can be clean, but try getting that through to the populace.

[Motu]

modern coal can be clean,

Oh,have they made some new stuff?

[James Deuce]

Yes. Out of compressed dunny rolls.

[Jantar]

Yeah, but so would shitloads of hot water cylinder wraps,compulsory solar water units for new houses or windmills....
...Mohikinui will only have a life span of 100 years as it will fill up with silt & debris...then what?
Jantar,I too see the need for more generation capacity, but surely gains from efficency should be tried first.You can get a lot of cylinder wraps for the price of a dam.

If the estimate of useful life before the dam silts up is 100 years, that just means that it is 100 years before it needs to implement a flushing regime. Not that the dam has to be shut down in 100 years.

I agree that cylinder wraps, insulation, low energy light bulbs etc should all be used, and I believe that New Zealand already has a better than 50% usage. So lets assume that no domestic properties in the upper South Island have cylinder wraps and work out how much energy could be saved if all homes installed them.

A cylinder wrap improves the efficiency of a hot water cylinder by around 15%, and as an average domestic home without a cylinder wrap uses around 30% of its energy in hot water that means we could save 15% of 30% or a total of 4.5% of domestic energy. The upper south island current consumes around 800 MW of power and domestic use is about 40% of this, so if we installed wraps in every home in the upper south island we would save 4.5% of 40% of 800 MW. That is a saving of 14.4 MW.

However if we assume that half of all homes already have wraps then that saving comes down to 7.2 MW. This is still much less than the increase in generation required.

[Swoop]

Farmers/landowners should be allowed to generate and sell power to the grid. A wind gen costs a couple of million $$, but will return very well around the windy west coast, just south and north of Auckland.

Sorry. The ultra greenies have over-ruled the regular greenies on this. Wind generated power (south of d'Auckland) makes noise that "disturbs the horses".

Serious.

[Pussy]

Sorry. The ultra greenies have over-ruled the regular greenies on this. Wind generated power (south of d'Auckland) makes noise that "disturbs the horses".

Serious.

And those dirty big wind turbines "disturb" ag pilots, too