New Zealand Aluminium Smelter (NZAS) announced on Monday it would reduce its electricity usage by a total of 185 megawatts (MW) from early August, in response to a call from Meridian Energy.
NZAS chief executive Chris Blenkiron said Tiwai had already taken off 50MW in response to a call from Meridian earlier this month and would now start ramping down a further 135MW.
This was part of the new electricity supply agreements for the smelter, which came into force earlier this month and will enable the plant at Tiwai Point to operate for the next 20 years.
"With lake storage near their lowest levels historically, we will commence ramp-down to enable 185MW to flow into the system, to help ease tight supply ... I want to recognise the significant work ahead for the team at Tiwai, who will now be asked to commence stopping and restarting one-third of our operation, until April next year."
Mr Blenkiron said while winding back its operations was complex, the company understood the importance of playing its part as part of the wider electricity system to ease the stress the system was under due to tight hydro and gas supplies.
The Otago Daily Times queried yesterday if there would be any change in staff levels due to the large cut in its operations, but a Rio Tinto spokesman guaranteed there would be no redundancies.
However, it would affect the quantity of production in the plant.
"There are no material changes or staff changes as a result of the call from Meridian. However, some staff will be redeployed from other areas within the site to enable the load shift to occur.
"The wind-down and ramp-up again will obviously impact the amount of aluminium produced during that time."
Mr Blenkiron said the demand-response call from Meridian represented a significant moment for the smelter’s new energy supply agreements.
"Initiating the demand-response aspects of our new energy supply agreement so early on validates the hard work that went into negotiating the agreements over the last 12 months.
"It has given the system some of the long-called-for flexibility New Zealand needs to respond to the energy challenges we face."
