The company behind the planned energy-from-waste plant in Glenavy is getting involved in a similar venture in Northland.
The Kaipara District Council is pushing to build an energy-from-waste plant in or near Auckland.
Local Democracy Reporting yesterday reported Kaipara deputy mayor Jonathan Larsen said South Island Resource Recovery Ltd (SIRRL) was the industry operator the Kaipara District Council would work with to investigate setting up a huge multimillion-dollar energy-from-waste plant.
SIRRL is a joint venture partnership between China Tianying Inc (CNTY), which owns 41%, Belgian-based European subsidiary EUZY which owns 19% and Auckland-based Renew Energy Ltd which owns 40%.
CNTY is a Chinese-based company mostly involved in municipal waste incineration for power generation.
SIRRL is aiming to build what it says will be New Zealand’s first plant of its type — called Project Kea and processing 365,000 tonnes of waste annually in rural Glenavy.
The Kaipara investigation is to be done in conjunction with Auckland Council, the Whangārei District Council, Far North District Council, Northland Inc and Te Uri o Hau.
Cr Pera Paniora said Waka Kotahi NZTA was also interested.
Mr Larsen said the major infrastructure would incinerate Northland and Auckland councils’ waste.
The time was right to investigate harnessing this modern and clean technology which produced energy and valuable byproducts.
"Hope that we can try and land something, maybe in this term of council," Mr Larsen said.
He said council chief executive Jason Marris could check whether other Northland council chief executives would be interested and if so, a combined councils’ workshop with industry operators could follow.
Kaipara Mayor Craig Jepson was previously involved in the international energy-from-waste plant company Olivine plan to convert North Waikato’s coal-fired Meremere power station into a waste-to-energy plant. The company pulled out after an 18-month resource consent battle.
Mr Larsen said Auckland Council’s involvement was critical to provide the economies of scale needed for rubbish supply to the incinerator.
The technology has been used overseas in Northern Europe, Japan and South Korea but it has never been operated in New Zealand.
Auckland produced roughly 1.6 million tonnes of rubbish annually.
Cr Gordon Lambeth said a new energy-from-water plant provided opportunity for Kaipara.
"Build it and they will come. Auckland’s got a problem, we’ve got the solution. I believe this a great opportunity economically for the Kaipara District Council. Auckland ain’t going to get it [the plant] built," Mr Lambeth said.
SIRRL had lodged consents last year for its Glenavy plant with the Waimate District Council and Environment Canterbury. The councils did not want to process the consents without a cultural impact report. SIRRL appealed that decision and a hearing was held late last month in front of a commissioner.
A decision from the commissioner is expected before the end of this week.
