Lake Onslow Photo:
A private consortium looking to revive the Lake Onslow pumped hydro storage scheme is preparing to lodge a fast-track consent application with the government.
The idea, backed by the previous Labour government, was scrapped by the new National-led coalition after it won the election in 2023.
The Clutha Pumped Hydro Consortium has a number of well-known shareholders, including former Environment Minister David Parker, former Meridian chief executive Keith Turner, lawyer John Hardie, former NZ Oil & Gas chairperson Rodger Findlay, and another former Meridian executive, Ken Smales.
Previous costings put the price tag of such a project at nearly $16 billion.
Turner said the consortium was preparing to put in a fast-track consent application with the government in the "next week or two".
"We have a pretty positive response from landowners and the next task is to complete the fast-track submission and get that into the process," he said.
Turner said the project would secure long-term, reliable power supply during dry hydro inflows, and was a better alternative than coal.
The project put forward would be similar to the previously scrapped plan, with a 1000 megawatt power station and just over 5000 gigawatt hours (GWh) of storage capacity.
For context, the Electricity Authority said the current national hydro storage is equivalent to about 4500 GWh.
Aside from dealing with dry years, the Lake Onslow project could be a solution to the intermittent nature of renewable generation such as solar and wind.
Turner said the consortium was "not talking about funding yet" as it focused on the consent application, but he had seen encouraging signs in the private sector.
"I sit on a board in Australia, we're doing some very large projects in New South Wales to develop renewable energy zones, and it's just astounding the amount of global money looking to find good, reliable, investments in renewable energy," he said.
"With that backdrop, I have absolutely no question that when we know about the consent conditions we will see significant scale of capital for the project."
Turner said the consortium "already had quite a few phone calls" from interested parties.
He did not think the previous Labour government had a plan for how the Lake Onslow project would be executed.
Turner felt there was a "deep bucket" for private capital to back major infrastructure projects such as Lake Onslow.
