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Speaker 1: Very interesting insight into how we produce power in this country.

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Speaker 1: Yesterday Genesis opened the country's biggest solar farm, but they're

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Speaker 1: also in the business of coal, bringing in seven hundred

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Speaker 1: and seventy kilotons of the stuff to top up the

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Speaker 1: four hundred and sixty five kilotons already here. The Genesis

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Speaker 1: Energy boss, Malcolm John's is with us. Malcolm, very good

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Speaker 1: morning to you.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, how are you?

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Speaker 1: No, I'm very well. Indeed, I was watching yesterday is

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Speaker 1: a nice day in Canterbury, but rainy. But nevertheless, I'm

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Speaker 1: a fan of the solar But I looked at that yesterday.

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Speaker 1: Are you getting close to an I saw there?

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Speaker 2: It's pretty big, it is, but the visual impact has

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Speaker 2: been managed. It's obviously Canterbridge flat, which helps, but you

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Speaker 2: can't actually see the solar farm from the road and

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Speaker 2: it has no visual impact on the on the landscape

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Speaker 2: at all.

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Speaker 1: Okay, can the farm still operate.

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Speaker 2: As Certney can?

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Speaker 1: So? A lot of people argue with me on that.

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Speaker 1: My understanding is the sheep grays and life carries on.

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Speaker 1: Is that true?

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Speaker 2: That's correct? And so effectively the farmer receives income from

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Speaker 2: the solar farm and from grazing sheep under the solar farm.

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Speaker 1: What's your cost going forward in terms of replacing panels

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Speaker 1: and all of that.

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Speaker 2: The panels will last for between twenty and twenty five years.

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Speaker 2: They're cleaned regularly and so their hail proof and et cetera,

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Speaker 2: et cetera, so it'll be relatively minimal.

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Speaker 1: How many more of those type of operations does this

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Speaker 1: country need solar wise to get renewable?

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Speaker 2: Our soul is part of our overall mix. It's not

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Speaker 2: a replacement for everything. But the advantage it gives you,

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Speaker 2: particularly in mid Canterbury. Mid Canterbury has a demand for

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Speaker 2: electricity which peaks in the summertime. The rest of the

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Speaker 2: New Zealand the demand peaks in the winter time, so

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Speaker 2: soul is perfect for that part of New Zealand. But

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Speaker 2: the advantage it gives you more broadly is it allows

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Speaker 2: you to hold water back in the lakes and so

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Speaker 2: your lakes become more like giant batteries than having to

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Speaker 2: generate electricity every day the year. And to the the

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Speaker 2: Evan solar gives.

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Speaker 1: You Okay, let me come back to that just a

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Speaker 1: couple of moments. But as regards the rest of it,

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Speaker 1: so the reason I ask is you're bringing in coal,

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Speaker 1: and we've got a shedload of coal because we need

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Speaker 1: it because the renewable dream is not quite here. How

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Speaker 1: long before you're not bringing in the sort of coal

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Speaker 1: you need to bring in.

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Speaker 2: Oh, there's two things. With coal. New Zealand will reach

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Speaker 2: about ninety five percent renewable generation and sold that a

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Speaker 2: wind will play a big part of that. But there

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Speaker 2: will be periods of time when the wind's not blowing

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Speaker 2: and the rain hasn't come, like last winter and like

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Speaker 2: the start of this year, et cetera. So we will

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Speaker 2: need back up from flexible thermal generation for many decades

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Speaker 2: to come. The largest place we store electricity in New

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Speaker 2: Zealand is actually our forests. We store about three times

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Speaker 2: as much energy in our forest as we do in

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Speaker 2: our lakes and in the coal stockpilot Huntley. And so

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Speaker 2: we're progressively moving to displace coal with biomass over the

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Speaker 2: next five years or so. But even in a really

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Speaker 2: dry year, even with that biomass, New Zealand is likely

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Speaker 2: to need some coal reserve back up for some decades

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Speaker 2: to come.

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Speaker 1: Does biomass work in terms of heat real heat as

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Speaker 1: opposed to all heat.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it does, so biomass actually burns hotter than cold

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Speaker 2: because there has a lower moisture content.

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Speaker 1: As regards you mentioned transfer Transpoer on this ongoing discussion

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Speaker 1: they're having with access to reserves, I can't quite work

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Speaker 1: out where their heads at. If we've got these emergency

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Speaker 1: reserves and they don't yet you have them, what's the

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Speaker 1: point of having them?

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Speaker 2: Well, my understanding from what Transpower is published is the

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Speaker 2: emergency reserves are there as a last last resort.

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Speaker 1: And if you use them, what's the trigger?

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Speaker 2: Though?

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Speaker 1: I mean the last last winter is last last I

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Speaker 1: mean we've had a couple of winters. Now looks like

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Speaker 1: we're going into another one where things are too tight.

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Speaker 1: We look a bit third world. So at what point

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Speaker 1: do we actually trigger it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you look at a major plant failure

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Speaker 2: or a major gas well failure, those emergency reserves are

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Speaker 2: there to cover that. If you use them and then

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Speaker 2: you have a major plan failure, a major guess well failure,

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Speaker 2: or you have geopolitical disruption, you can't port Cole into

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Speaker 2: New Zealand, you have nothing left. And so the reason

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Speaker 2: those reserves are there as a last last resort, and

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Speaker 2: so you really need to talk to transpower in terms

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Speaker 2: of the thinking behind the way that's structured. But that's

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Speaker 2: why those reserves are there.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff, malcome us to talk to. You appreciate it

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Speaker 1: very much. Welcome John's Genesis Energy.

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Speaker 2: See ye For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen

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