Southland industry is being held up as a leading example in the push to reduce to carbon emissions across the country.
A new report known as the Regional Energy Transition Accelerator (RETA) has been released to 1News.
It’s the first to look in-depth into the region's energy needs and to suggest ways to accelerate the move away from fossil fuels.
One of the country’s largest red meat exporters, Alliance Farmers’ Produce, is now using electric heat pumps for hot water and steam systems at it’s Lorneville plant near Invercargill.
The meat works lignite-fired boilers are next to go as it replaces its old, fossil fuelled machinery.
The group’s manufacturing general manager Willie Wiese said “we are targeting 77% before 2035… I think we could potentially get to about 85% to 88% and then it's going to be hard work”.
Industry heating makes up about 8% of our overall carbon emissions.
So far across the south, almost half the old boilers have been ripped out.
The region’s economic development’s Great South spokesperson, Steve Canny, told 1News “it’s the low hanging fruit and we can make a very significant impact quickly”.
The new report from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) has brought together all those involved, to work out how to make the switch to cleaner fuels faster.
It models some of the work Southland businesses have been working on for years to reduce emissions within industry.
EECA spokesperson Nicki Sutherland said “tackling process heat is a really critical place to start and we see it as a high priority because unlike areas like transport there's actually technology there right now”.
Steve Canny said “what [the RETA report] has given most industries is an on ramp, an understanding of why change is necessary not just from a climate change perspective but also consumer preferences are seeking low carbon processing particularly for export foods and so on”.
To achieve our goals in the space, the report highlights how knowledge sharing, regional co-ordination and co-funding through the government's decarbonisation fund (GIDI) is crucial to its success.
It also relies on more clean energy production.
“In our region we need to double or quadruple the amount of energy entering our market in primarily electricity which means new energy generation,” said Canny.
EECA said all the main players like Transpower and regional lines companies are involved and are well aware of the situation.
“For many of these businesses the barrier is a piece of infrastructure upstream," said Sutherland.
“We are really grateful for is that we are able to do this together…because all of the players that are involved with this challenge know the criticality of this piece."
The Government is fronting $650m to support businesses through the process.
“Businesses know they’ve got decarbonisation work that they need to do but they don't have the capital funding to get it across the line because of competing demands on their balance sheets," said Sutherland.
Something Alliance believes in is helping their businesses not just in Southland but across the country meet our country’s targets.
Wiese said, “really it does help you overcome some of those barriers because some can be quite cost prohibitive”.
Sutherland told 1News, "we are treating the climate crisis like a climate crisis we want businesses too".
The hope is the transition will not only keep businesses humming but always been sustainably greener for years to come.
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