- The New Zealand government will investigate the viability of establishing a pumped hydroelectric facility on the South Island.
- The project could provide up to 8.5 TWh of annual generation and storage capacity to support the nation’s transition to 100% renewable electricity generation.
The government of New Zealand has confirmed that it will develop a detailed business case for a pumped hydro scheme at Lake Onslow as it seeks to build “a resilient, affordable, secure and decarbonized energy system.” Energy Minister Megan Woods said the Lake Onslow facility is central to the New Zealand Battery Project, which has been established to explore how best to solve the dry year problem – when low rainfall limits existing hydro-electricity supply without using fossil fuels.
Woods said, “Until we address the dry year problem, we will continue to rely on burning expensive and polluting fossil fuels to produce electricity. Pumped hydro is an ingenious way of storing energy in a big reservoir, which is released into a lower reservoir when more power is needed, like a giant battery.” The pumped hydro scheme at Lake Onslow is expected to provide between 3 TWh and 8.5 TWh of annual generation and storage capacity, depending on the scope of the enlarged lake.
Woods added, “We always knew that any dry-year battery storage solution would require significant investment, so we must thoroughly test these scenarios and get it right. Now more detailed work has been done, we have a clearer picture of the projected costs, which differ significantly from the 2006 high-level costings. The next phase will be to dig even further before we look at spending such a huge amount of money, but one thing we do know is that doing nothing to plan for climate change is not an option.”