New Zealand Direct Geothermal Use Inventory Update – Data, Visualisation and Information

Abstract

Direct geothermal use in New Zealand spans sectors (e.g. tourism, industrial, agricultural, commercial, residential) and includes a broad range of energy use technologies from high-temperature industrial-scale processes to low temperature small-scale installations. Access to reliable and accurate direct use data informs sound decision making by resource managers, to ensure the effects of use on geothermal systems are well understood. Robust data also informs adaptive management, as users and regulators seek more efficient, sustainable and effective use of geothermal resources. Large industrial uses have metering associated with their facilities, with reliable energy, take and discharge data being captured, often as part of their permits to operate. However, different challenges are faced in other sectors where there are often multiple single users with relatively small-scale use. These challenges include (i) developing monitoring systems that are accurate, versatile, and cost effective, and (ii) capturing reliable and accurate data where smaller privately-owned entities are often unaware of the thermal capacity or the energy delivery from their heat producing facilities. The Bay of Plenty Regional Council (BOPRC) has recently focussed on improving the reliability of geothermal usage data on the Rotorua Geothermal Field in a way that is easily transferable across the many users, to inform a review of the management of the Rotorua Field. GNS Science has been cataloguing available take and use data through the development of a New Zealand-wide graphical and searchable, interactive web-based “geothermal use” database. Their aim is to provide information to landowners, businesses and councils on what geothermal resources there are in their area, and the various ways it is being used. This paper summarises these complementary activities and charts the progress of New Zealand’s goal to better understand the extent of its direct geothermal energy use – seeking to better inform geothermal management policy, and to foster, as appropriate, the uptake of direct geothermal energy use.