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Contact now has 5.6 PJ of gas stored underground at Ahuroa
30 September 2009 - Contact Energy has now injected 5.6 petajoules (PJ) of gas into its Ahuroa underground gas storage facility in onshore Taranaki since it began storing the gas in December 2008.
Contact said in its 2009 annual report that although the gas storage project is not expected to be fully operational until 2010, it has already provided the electricity producer with a valuable source of fuel flexibility. Ahuroa provides an ability to inject and store ‘must-take’ gas during the low demand and high hydro inflow summer months.
A more powerful compressor added during September 2009 will increase the daily volume of gas capable of being injected so that the company has a good cushion of gas.
Contact’s new 200 megawatt (MW) gas-fired peaking plant at Stratford, also scheduled to be completed in mid 2010, is on schedule.
As the market experiences increasing volatility due to transmission constraints, and weather-related intermittency, the fast-start design of this plant will enable Contact to respond to those events.
Combined with access to gas in storage, this will provide opportunities to leverage volatile market conditions.
Contact said that market conditions in the second half of its financial year to June 2009 exhibited a high degree of intra-day volatility confirming that the peaking plant combined with storage will be valuable additions.
Until the Ahuroa gas storage and peaker projects are completed next year, Contact will have limited ability to manage gas inflexibility.
Sources: Contact Energy and Lindsay Clark
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