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Speaker 1: Resources Minister Shane Jones putting money into Geo Thermal with

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Speaker 1: a plan to double generation by twenty forty to fifty

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Speaker 1: million has been set aside, nearly half already committed. It

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Speaker 1: includes loans for new plants and Cowardo and funding for

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Speaker 1: exploration in the Bay of Plenty. Stu Hamilton is the

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Speaker 1: Mercury Energy CEO and joins me this morning. Morning, step

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Speaker 1: Good morning Ryan, Good to have you on the show.

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Speaker 1: What did you think of the announcement.

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Speaker 2: It's exciting and we're a massive supporter of gs Thermill

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Speaker 2: keep part of our in as your portfolio and we

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Speaker 2: think it's got a great role to play in the

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Speaker 2: future of New Zealand and cel trists industry.

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Speaker 1: You've just opened a new unit at your plant, haven't you?

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Speaker 1: And done it in two years? Built it in two years?

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Speaker 1: Are they easy to build?

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Speaker 2: They can be quite challenging. It depends on how well

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Speaker 2: you know the resource or where the hot rock and

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Speaker 2: where the porous rocker is to be able to pull

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Speaker 2: the hot water out of the ground and plug it

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Speaker 2: into your plant. But for us, that the natan Reki

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Speaker 2: plant that we open yesterday, that took from the moment

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Speaker 2: that when you sort of spark the idea to the moment.

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Speaker 2: We sparked the elect into the grid this less than

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Speaker 2: two years, which is a really great project.

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Speaker 1: We struggle to build roundabouts in that timeframe. How do

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Speaker 1: you how do you find the hot rock versus the

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Speaker 1: poorest rock?

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Speaker 2: Like?

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Speaker 1: Is that the hard part?

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Speaker 2: That is a hard part, and that was part of

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Speaker 2: it's a big part of this GFRM A strategy is

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Speaker 2: helping to de risk that initial upfront finding of the

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Speaker 2: hot rock because GFM will really needs when you're tapping

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Speaker 2: into the Earth's battery, you need to find this hot rock.

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Speaker 2: It also needs to be porous because what you're doing

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Speaker 2: is you're pulling hot water out of the ground. You

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Speaker 2: need that hot water to slow past that poorous hot rock.

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Speaker 2: And so that kind of exploration drilling is really a

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Speaker 2: key cost up front that has been sort of helped

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Speaker 2: and dear risk through this plan.

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Speaker 1: How do you so, why does it need government money

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Speaker 1: to do it? Is it because otherwise it would be

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Speaker 1: too expensive for you to go looking for hot rock.

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Speaker 2: That's right when you're drilling a whole. The tolls are

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Speaker 2: talking about drilling, they're about twenty million dollars a hole

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Speaker 2: and you need to find about It needs to drill

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Speaker 2: about twenty to maybe about twenty of those holes for

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Speaker 2: a GFM will field. So you're talking about a massive

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Speaker 2: investment to actually do exploration. And it's quite possible that

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Speaker 2: when you invest at three or four hundred million that

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Speaker 2: you might not find the rock that you need. So

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Speaker 2: it is exploration and that's where this money can help.

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Speaker 1: How much do you empower? Will we get out of

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Speaker 1: this new unit that you've started?

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Speaker 2: The power it's coming out when you combine that whole

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Speaker 2: site that produces enough electricity to power about one hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty thousand houses, which is equivalent of christ Gift.

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Speaker 2: So these general plants can provide significant power. But also

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Speaker 2: the really good thing about them is it provides at

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Speaker 2: twenty four to seven, so it doesn't matter what the

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Speaker 2: seasons are doing or what the weather's doing. It just

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Speaker 2: produces clean, reliable energy twenty four hours a day.

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Speaker 1: Just finally, I know that prices are going up for

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Speaker 1: your customers nearly ten percent on average from first of April.

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Speaker 1: Are you going to increase that any further this year

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Speaker 1: or are you going to do it in April next year?

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Speaker 2: Normally reassess it every year, so we'll reassess it an

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Speaker 2: April year next year. And that really takes to account

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Speaker 2: a few things, one of which is the wholesale price

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Speaker 2: of electricity, but also it takes into account what's happening

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Speaker 2: with lions charges and transmission costs, because there's a fairy

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Speaker 2: amount of investments going on too that in New Zealand

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Speaker 2: at the moment too.

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Speaker 1: Appreciate your time, Stuart Hamilton, chief executive at Mercury.

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