Renewables
New Zealand's renewable energy supply increased on 2023 levels, with strong growth in geothermal, solar, and wind energy. The renewable share of total primary energy supply increased, driven by both higher renewable output and reduced production of non-renewable energy sources. Additionally, the renewable share of consumption also increased compared to 2023.
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Background
New Zealand uses renewable energy sources for electricity generation and direct use.
Electricity generation
New Zealand’s renewable resources are primarily used to generate electricity in New Zealand:
- Hydro is used to generate electricity, with hydroelectric plants distributed across both islands. The largest plants, in terms of capacity, are found in the South Island.
- Wind is also used to generate electricity, with the largest wind farms found in the North Island.
- New Zealand’s geothermal resources are almost exclusively concentrated in the central North Island, within the Taupō Volcanic Zone. There is also a geothermal field in Northland at Ngāwhā. Electricity generation plants in these locations run as baseload, meaning that they are unable to quickly adjust their generation output.
- Solar is a newer of source of renewable electricity generation in New Zealand. Historically, this has been in the form of ‘distributed’ installations such as on-site generation or use by households and businesses. Recent years have seen large ‘utility-scale’ solar farms coming online with some of these connected to the national electricity grid.
Direct use
Renewable energy can also be used for a range of other applications:
- Geothermal is used directly in industrial processes (such as drying milk powder or timber), heating greenhouses, and for residential and commercial heating. Kawerau, where geothermal steam is a significant source of energy for pulp and paper mills located there, is one of the largest locations in the world for direct use of geothermal heat.
- Solid biofuels refer to woody biomass, black liquor, charcoal, and firewood.
- Many pulp and paper mills and wood processors use by-products, such as wood residuals and black liquor, onsite to generate heat for their processes.
- Black liquor is a by-product of the wood pulping process, containing lignin, wood fibres, and chemicals. It is combusted in boilers in pulp mills and is considered to be a solid biofuel.
- Households use smaller amounts of charcoal and firewood.
- Liquid biofuels are renewable, low emission fuels that can be used in place of existing fossil fuel oil products.
- Biodiesel and bioethanol can be blended with petrol or diesel and are compatible with existing internal combustion engines and help reduce transport emissions.
- Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is a jet fuel made from renewable feedstocks such as vegetable oils and animal fats and is chemically similar to fossil jet fuel.
- Biogas is produced from organic waste sources like wastewater, sewage, and landfills. It consists mainly of methane and carbon dioxide and is used to generate heat and electricity.
- Sludge gas is derived from the anaerobic fermentation of biomass and solid wastes from sewage.
- Landfill gas is derived from the anaerobic fermentation of biomass and other organic solid wastes in landfills.
Renewable energy production increased in 2024
The total supply of renewable energy increased to 379 PJ in 2024, a 16.1 PJ rise from 2023. Supply of most renewables increased except for hydro and liquid biofuels. Among these, geothermal, solar, and wind continue to reach record high levels. In contrast hydro fell to its lowest level since 2013.
New Zealand’s renewable share of total primary energy supply (TPES) increased to 45.4% in 2024, up from 42.9% in 2023. This has been driven by a combination of increases in renewable energy production and decreases in non-renewable energy production. Renewable energy production increased 4.42% from 363 PJ in 2023 to 379 PJ in 2024, while non-renewable energy production decreased 5.6% from 483 PJ to 456 PJ.
Use of renewable energy increases
Direct use of renewable energy increased by 4.07% from 32.5 PJ in 2023 to 33.8 PJ in 2024. This was largely driven by a 6.17% increase in industrial sector direct use of renewable energy from 21.4 PJ in 2023 to 22.7 PJ in 2024.
Solid biofuel production has recovered slightly from a 30-year low following Cyclone Gabrielle. Pan Pac’s Whirinaki site near Napier paused operations in February 2023 as the cyclone lead to flooding. The site was shut down in February 2023 due to damage caused by this flooding. Operations were resumed in a phased approach, with major facilities like the chip mill, sawmill, and pulp mill gradually resuming operations after August 2023.
Wood residuals are a type of solid biofuel used in New Zealand that are by-products of sawmilling and pulp production and are typically used on-site. Use of wood residuals has been trending down in recent years, with the closures of mills contributing to this.
Renewable electricity generation capacity continues to grow
Collectively, electricity generation capacity from renewables increased 7% from 2023 to 8,728 MW in 2024. This was a 17% increase from 5 years ago (Figure 11).
Geothermal electricity capacity increased in 2024, up 21% from 2023. Driving the increase was the opening of two new geothermal power stations. Contact Energy’s Tauhara power station came online in May 2024, ahead of full commissioning activity to support the electricity system in meeting demand during a cold period. In October 2024, commissioning activity started at Contact Energy’s Te Huka 3 geothermal power station, during which generation from this plant was supplied to the grid for the first time.
Figure 11. Electricity generation capacity for solar photovolatic, wind, and geothermal generation, by year.
View chart data for figure 11
Solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity increased 51% from 2023 to 2024. Contributing to this was the opening of solar farms such as Lodestone Energy’s Rangitaiki Solar Farm in March 2024, Newpower Energy’s Naumai solar farm in May 2024 and Northpower’s Ruawai solar farm (December 2024). In addition to new utility-scale solar farms, distributed solar capacity also increased. Based on installed distributed generation trends published by the Electricity Authority, total installed capacity of residential solar (covering connections with and without batteries) increased 29% over the 2024 calendar year, increasing from 251 MW to 323 MW.
Wind generation capacity has nearly doubled over the past 5 years from 688 MW of installed capacity in 2020 to 1265 MW of installed capacity in 2024. Contributing to this has been four new wind farms coming online over the past five years, Harapaki, Kaiwera Downs, Turitea, and Waipipi. The upward trend continued in 2024 with wind capacity increasing 10% from 2023 to 2024.
Table 1. New plant capacity from November 2023 – December 2024
| Plant Name | Type | Capacity[3] |
|---|---|---|
| Naumai | Solar | 4.8 MW |
| Te Huka Unit 3 | Geothermal | 51.4 MW |
| Tauhara | Geothermal | 174 MW |
| Rangitaiki | Solar | 32 MWp[4] |
| Kohirā | Solar | 33 MWp6 |
| Harapaki | Wind | 176 MW |
| Ruawai | Solar | 16.7 MWdc[5] |