ENGR101 Assignment Cover Sheet

Assignment Title Supply and Demand of Electricity in New Zealand

Assignment Number

Name(s): Akshay Kumar

ID Number(s): 74577847

Username(s): aku35

Design Studio: Stream Y

Due Date and Time: 31st March 2011 I confirm that the submission attached to this cover sheet is entirely my (or our teams) own work (apart from general verbal discussion with other students).

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Date and Time Received (College Use Only)

Supply and Demand of Electricity in New Zealand

ENGR101 Assignment 1

Akshay Kumar University of Canterbury

31 March 2011

Summary

The major energy providers are described in detail to provide us with an understanding of their electricity contribution to the national grid. Utilisation of renewable energy is compared to our use of non-renewable sources of energy. This is to understand how much each contributes to New Zealand's total supply. Also the demand of electricity is evaluated to provide us with an idea of the future developments ahead including the Kyoto Protocol.

Introduction

In New Zealand there are five major energy companies who produce electricity. These include Meridian, Contact Energy, Genesis Energy, Mighty River Power and Trustpower. Meridian Energy provides approximately 30% of New Zealand's entire electricity generation making it the largest electricity generator in New Zealand. To produce electricity they predominately use renewable sources of energy including hydro energy and wind energy (Meridian, 2010). Contact Energy has power stations which provide around 25% of New Zealand's electricity. They produce electricity by using a broad number of sources including renewable sources that are geothermal energy, wind energy, hydro electricity and nonrenewable sources with gas-fired peaking power stations (Contact Energy, 2010). Genesis Energy supplies 19% of New Zealand's electricity by the use of thermal energy and renewable energy (Genesis Energy, 2010). Mighty River Power provides up to 16% of New Zealand's electricity during peak times. This electricity is generated by thermal sources and hydro sources (Mighty River Power, n.d). Trustpower is a smaller company providing electricity through 36 medium to large hydro generating centres and a large wind farm (Trust Power, 2008). This report considers New Zealand's main energy providers, different sources of renewable energy and future developments for sustainability and meeting international commitments.

Technical Information

Renewable energy formed around 35% of Total Primary Supply in 2009 (Figure 2). The main sources of renewable energy are geothermal, hydro, bioenergy, solar and wind. As shown in Figure 1 geothermal energy provided the largest amount of total renewable energy at 45% in 2009. Geothermal energy comes from the heat from the centre of the earth so is a clean and efficient energy. This heat is sourced from volcanic activity so is predominant in the Taupo Volcanic Zone where many geothermal plants are. One example is the Wairaki-Tauhara

system which was built in 1958 and is north of Taupo (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, 2011b). Hydro energy is produced through hydro dams and provided around 32% of New Zealand's total renewable energy in 2009. Many of these large dams are in Benmore, Manapouri, and Clyde where large masses of water are available to build a dam (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, 2011c). Bioenergy and solar energy jointly provided 21% of our renewable energy in 2009. Bioenergy is conserved in biological materials such as wood, wood waste and manure (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, 2011a).

Figure 1. Renewable Primary Energy Supply (data from Ministry of Economic Development, 2009a) Non-renewable energy is sourced from fossil fuels which include oil, gas and coal and are unsustainable. In 2009 non-renewable energy formed around 65% of Total Primary Energy supply (Figure 2). An example of a thermal electricity generator is Genesis's combined cycle gas turbine at its Huntly facility which burns natural gas to provide enough electricity for around 400,000 homes (Power Technology, 2011).

Future Developments

To remain effective in supplying electricity New Zealand must address a number of key issues. One issue is the sustainability of the renewable energy sources used by key sectors such as the industry. The second is an international issue relating to New Zealand meeting the commitments of the Kyoto Protocol while covering increased demand.

4.1

Total direct use for renewable energy sources

Table 1 below shows the total direct use for renewable energy sources. Woody biomass is used to the greatest extent by the industry at 42.85 PJ. Woody biomass includes limbs, tops, leaves and other wood parts of trees and woody plants (US Forest Service, 2008). Therefore they are a sustainable renewable source of energy if the rate of trees being cut down is balanced by trees being planted to replace them. In analysing the table it appears that in the future the industry will need to reduce the total direct use of woody biomass and increase their utilisation of geothermal energy. Geothermal energy is from the heat of the earth and does not require constant replacement such as planting trees. Table 1. Renewable Energy direct use by Sector for 2009 (data from Ministry of Economic Development,2011c)
PJ Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Industrial Commercial Residential Geothermal 0.73 6.31 2.52 0.28 Solar 0.34 Biogas 0.28 Woody biomass 42.85 7.64 Total Direct Use 0.73 49.16 2.80 8.26

4.2

Demand of Electricity and the Kyoto Protocol

Demand of electricity is increasing at a rate of 1.5-2 % each year (Transpower, n.d). This extra demand will need to be remedied by New Zealand's energy output increasing each year in order to cope with the added stress. The Total Primary Energy Supply for New Zealand is shown to be broadly divided up into renewable and non-renewable sources in Figure 2 using data from Ministry of Economic Department (2010). Figure 2 shows how the ratio of renewable to non-renewable energy has remained fairly constant over the past decades. As demand has increased renewable and non-renewable sources of energy have increased their output at a fairly constant rate. To meet the Kyoto protocol demands, New Zealand must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions on average to 1990 levels (Ministry for the Environment, 2010). This means that New Zealand needs to invest to a greater extent in renewable sources of energy to meet that agreement and concurrently meet demand.

Percentage of total primary energy supply

80.0% 70.0% 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% 30.0% 20.0% 10.0% 0.0% 1970 Renewable Non-renewable

1980

1990 Year

2000

2010

2020

Figure 2. Total Primary Energy Supply by Renewable and Non-renewable sources (data from Ministry of Economic Development, 2010b)

Conclusions

To keep up with the increasing demand for electricity New Zealand will need to increase output of electricity from its renewable and non-renewable sources. It will need to concentrate on increasing renewable sources of energy to a greater extent in order meet the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. The industry will have to invest in using other renewable sources of energy such as geothermal energy which are easier to replenish than woody biomass.

References

Contact Energy. (2011). Our Company. Retrieved from http://www.contactenergy.co.nz/web/shared/ourcompany?vert=au Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority. (2011a). Bioenergy. Retrieved from http://www.eeca.govt.nz/efficient-and-renewable-energy/renewable-energy/bioenergy Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority. (2011b). Geothermal Energy. Retrieved from http://www.eeca.govt.nz/efficient-and-renewable-energy/renewable-energy/geothermalenergy

Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority. (2011c). Hydro Energy. Retrieved from http://www.eeca.govt.nz/efficient-and-renewable-energy/renewable-energy/hydro-energy Genesis Energy. (2010). About Genesis Energy. Retrieved from http://www.genesisenergy.co.nz/genesis/about-us/companyinformation/about_genesis_energy_home.cfm Meridian. (2010). 2010 Meridian Energy Annual Report. Retrieved from http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/AboutUs/Company+Reports+and+Presentations/Presentati ons/2010AnnualResultsInformation/ Mighty River Power. (n.d). Power Stations. Retrieved from http://www.mightyriver.co.nz/Generation/PowerStations/ Ministry for the Environment. (2010). The Kyoto Protocol. Retrieved from http://www.mfe.govt.nz/issues/climate/international/kyoto-protocol.html Ministry of Economic Development. (2009a). Renewables. Retrieved from http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/ContentTopicSummary____21274.aspx Ministry of Economic Development. (2010b). New Zealand Energy data file 2010. Retrieved from http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/StandardSummary____15169.aspx Ministry of Economic Development. (2011c). Renewable Energy Direct Use by Sector. Retrieved from http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/MultipageDocumentTOC____45617.aspx Power Technology. (2011). E3P 385MW CCGT at Huntly Unit 5, New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.power-technology.com/projects/EP3/ Transpower. (n.d). Electricity Demand. Retrieved from http://www.systemoperator.co.nz/demand-status#cs-1506506 Trust Power. (2008). Information Centre. Retrieved from http://www.trustpower.co.nz/index.php?section=12 US Forest Service. (2008). Woody Biomass Utilisation. Retrieved from http://www.fs.fed.us/woodybiomass/whatis.shtml Word count excluding title page, references, graphs and tables: 949