Source: Radio New Zealand
RNZ
Power prices on the Chatham Islands are about to jump by a third because of high fuel prices.
From the start of June, the price will go from around $1 a kilowatt hour to $1.32 kWh.
That’s more than three times the average price on the mainland, which is around 40 cents kWh.
Chatham Islands Enterprise Trust chief executive Bob Penter said prices would be even higher without a wind farm that opened at the end of last year.
“There’s still a significant amount of our electricity on the island generated by diesel power through generators,” Penter said.
“We don’t have 100 percent renewable energy on the Chathams at the moment, so we are still reliant on those diesel generators when the wind isn’t blowing.”
Penter said the Chathams is about three times as reliant on diesel as the rest of the country, so they’ve had significant price increases at the petrol pump and to generate electricity.
Construction of the Port Durham wind farm. Supplied
In November last year, a new wind farm was opened in Point Durham on the Chatham Islands, with hopes it would substantially drop the already high power prices.
Penter said the wind farm has been working well.
“It is making quite a significant contribution to holding pricing back from what it would otherwise be without the wind farm,” Penter said.
“I think there would be an over 20 cent additional increase if we didn’t have wind power supporting electricity production.”
He said the wind farm is still being bedded in so may be able to generate more power in the future, and the islands are just entering its windier season.
Hotel Chatham owner Toni Croon said the price hike was going to be difficult for people to cope with.
She said in the six months since the wind farm had been operating, her power bills had dropped by around 20 percent.
That took her power bill down from the usual $20,000 a month, to $13,000 to power her 55-bedroom hotel.
She fears some families will look at leaving the island.
“I have a business so I have no choice. I have to keep going. But if you were just a household, man, you’d just about shift, just leave, because its not sustainable for normal families. I don’t how they’ll survive.”
Penter said the trust would cut power prices when diesel prices drop.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand