- Hon Dr Megan Woods
The Government is continuing to back businesses in their switch from fossil fuels to cleaner power to fuel their industry, with the announcement of 23 new projects that will receive government co-investment from Round Two of the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry (GIDI) Fund. The recipients will receive $28.7 million and will match this with $54.5m of their own funding.
“By partnering with the private sector to help it transition away from fossil fuels, the Government is delivering on a key election commitment to tackle climate change and helping to create jobs in the clean energy sector. This is about future-proofing our planet and our economy,” says Minister of Energy and Resources Megan Woods.
“These 23 projects will deliver annual savings of 142,591 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, amounting to 2.8 million tonnes over their lifetime. That’s the same as taking nearly 46,000 cars off the road,” said Megan Woods.
Minister Woods made the announcement at Meadow Mushrooms, in Canterbury which has made a commitment to reach carbon zero by 2025, after already reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 1,000 tonnes annually.
“Meadow Mushrooms made their initial reduction through clever energy efficiency and carbon reduction measures prior to fuel switching – these are the kinds of measures that all organisations should be embracing.
“Meadow Mushrooms’ GIDI-funded project will replace a diesel boiler with a domestically-sourced electrode boiler, which will further halve their carbon footprint. The demand for low-carbon produce is only growing, so it’s great to see the horticultural and agricultural sectors embracing carbon reduction, to give consumers greater confidence.” Dr Woods said.
Climate Change Minister James Shaw said with today’s announcement, the Government had taken another necessary step on the road towards a low emissions future, and with the Emissions Reduction Plan coming soon there would be many more steps to follow.
“For decades Governments have passed up opportunities to help industry replace the burning of dirty fuels with clean energy. Our Government’s work supporting industry to run on clean energy is a significant part of our plan for building a climate-friendly, prosperous future for Aotearoa New Zealand.” James Shaw said.
The approved projects cover a range of sectors including meat, dairy, and other food production, as well as timber, energy supply, and chemical manufacturing. All applicants had to demonstrate significant economic and employment impact from their projects, have carbon reduction plans, and be ready to complete projects by October 2023.
Other projects in the round include:
- Pacific Coilcoaters will install three electric near-infrared ovens, to significantly decarbonise their Colorcote painting process, in South Auckland.
- Mataura Valley Milk will install New Zealand’s first high pressure electrode boiler (15MW) to replace all current coal fired heat duties on the MVM site, making the site 100% electrified.
- Alliance Group’s Lorneville site will use a 16MW electrode steam boiler to provide steam and hot water for meat processing, thus displacing significant coal use with renewable electricity.
- Golden Bay Cement replaces a gas fired dryer with a wood pellet dryer at a new build facility. Golden Bay Cement will extract and process natural pozzolans in the Bay of Plenty as a cement supplement to reduce the amount of embodied CO2 in concrete by up to 30% cement whilst improving concrete durability.
- Silver Fern Farms Pareora site will install a high temperature heat pump to preheat hot water for the processing plant, shifting heating load away from fossil fuels to electrification.
Together, the first two rounds of the GIDI Fund have supported projects that will deliver lifetime emissions cuts of 6.6 million tonnes. This equates to 14-18 percent of the gross long-lived emission reductions required from the Climate Commission’s first carbon budget for the period 2022-2025.
Notes to editors:
EECA (The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority) administers the GIDI Fund on behalf of the Government through a contestable process that will see $69M of capital grants co-investment made available to support good projects.
Process heat makes up around a third of New Zealand’s overall energy use, and 60% of process heat is fossil-fuelled, mainly by gas and coal.
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