Gas vital to transition, Summer School told

GasNZ was invited to discuss the future of gas at the University of Auckland Energy Centre’s annual three-day Summer School in Energy Economics in February.

GasNZ chair, Nick Hannan, discussed the outlook for gas in New Zealand with around 100 summer school participants, focusing on gas supply issues and the development of a market in renewable gases to replace natural gas and LPG.

The fact that 60 percent of New Zealand’s energy still comes from fossil-fuels surprises many - including some of those in the room - and Hannan presented this as a conundrum for New Zealand’s decarbonisation pathway.

In the medium term, natural gas is essential for the electrification of energy, currently providing around 10 percent of the energy source for electricity generation, Hannan said.

He said the government needed to support gas supply to facilitate the pathway to electrification, and quoted the Minister of Resources, Shane Jones as saying in his view “we’re going to need gas till 2050. We’re always going to have to rely upon a contingency backup.”

(See presentation.)