Clean tech buffers business from rising energy costs

As high energy costs put the squeeze on many of the country’s businesses, ANZ has highlighted the value of long-term investment in clean energy technology.

“Businesses are doing it really tough in the current economic environment and we know for many their focus is on day-to-day survival,” says Antonia Watson, CEO of ANZ New Zealand. “We work with our customers through the economic cycles, and part of this is supporting investment in initiatives, including energy technology, to help future proof their businesses.”

Ms Watson made the comments while visiting a newly installed state-of-the-art wood waste boiler at fence post and pole producer, Hautapu Pine Products Ltd, in Taihape. Before it upgraded its ageing coal-fired boilers in late 2022, Hautapu Pine had been burning 110 tons or $52,000-worth of coal every month, trucked in from the West Coast.

“We know businesses want to be able to better manage the challenges they face, whether that is extreme weather, emissions regulations or volatile energy prices,” Ms Watson says. “So it’s great to see businesses like Hautapu Pine invest in their future and find ways to be more resilient and self-sufficient.”

Hautapu Pine’s Managing Director Susan Benson says the company started exploring options a few years ago, believing there must be a way to burn its wet wood waste to make steam to prepare the fence posts. “We had piles and piles of pine peelings we were doing very little with, and only getting a small amount of revenue from,” Ms Benson says.

With the help of a $913,500 grant from the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry (GIDI) Fund, the company settled on a $1.65 million high-tech Danish wood waste boiler. 

The new boiler, designed to handle the long, wet, stringy pine peelings, now powers the plant 24/7, turning what was once a waste product into a valuable resource. “It’s sort of like magic. To be able to create the steam you need from a waste product and at the same time reduce your carbon emissions – in our case to just 6 percent of what they were. It’s pretty cool,” she says.

Hautapu Pine covered part of the total $3.6 million cost of the project with lending from an ANZ Business Green Loan.

More >>

Source & image credit: ANZ