Energy Firms Applaud Use Of “Call-In”
September 18th, 2008
For all the criticism of the Resource Management Act, few are griping about the powers of the Govt to call in major contracts in the national interest. Contact Energy this week gained resource consent for its 220MW Te Mihi geothermal power station near Taupo after the approvals process was fast-tracked. A second project, the 540MW Hauauru ma raki wind farm near Raglan, was called in last month. Among those taking notice is Meridian Energy whose 650MW Project Hayes wind farm in Central Otago is bogged down in the Environment Court and its West Wind development near Wellington took two years to win approval. It’s too late for Project Hayes, which former Environment Minister David Benson-Pope declined to call in. Still, Meridian has a number of projects in the pipeline and is looking at ways to speed things up.
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Duncan Cotterill