New Developments
With global energy consumption projected to increase 50% in the next 20 years along with international oil prices to more than $100 a barrel — and still rising — there is a worldwide drive to find new energy resources.
Affordable energy is integral to people's standards of living so countries are investing more in developing secure, dependable sources of energy closer to home.
Solid Energy continues to develop new and innovative technologies in lignite conversion and gas production, as part of this drive to achieve energy security for New Zealand. Our aim is to produce reliable energy sources and high-value products using local resources.
This would make New Zealand less reliant on expensive, imported fuels and help build its social and economic wealth. There is a lot of work to do because New Zealand currently imports over half the energy it uses and national energy demand is growing fast — up almost 20% in the last 10 years, alone.
New Zealand's energy potential
The good news is that New Zealand already generates 67% of its electricity using wind and hydro, but this renewable energy can only continue growing if backed by dependable base-load energy generation that is not weather-dependent, particularly during dry months.
Solid Energy has searched globally for technologies to unlock the value of more than 3 billion tonnes of lignite in Eastern Southland, where we have secured access to more than 1.5 billion tonnes of recoverable resource.
We will also develop new and innovative technologies to produce natural gas substitutes from New Zealand's most abundant resource — coal.
Our goal
We plan to trial these technology paths in New Zealand conditions through demonstration pilot projects to build capability and knowledge. If successful, these projects will lead to larger-scale commercial operations.
Solid Energy's Southland lignite and gas development projects could be New Zealand's insurance policy, giving us breathing space to move in the long-term from fossil fuels to economically reliable and sustainable renewable fuels. It would also help us survive oil, energy and commodity price shocks, in the short-term.
The aim is to deliver affordable, environmentally sustainable energy to help New Zealand maintain a high standard of living while supporting local production of world-class goods that can compete in price-sensitive export markets.
Some of our New Developments research projects include: