Wairakei-Tauhara Power Plants

Nearby Lake Taupo is a gigantic geothermal power plant. It supplies 5% of NZ's total power requirements (which is really not very much when you think about it), and is the second oldest geothermal plant in the world. It looked like something out of a sci-fi movie.

The Wairakei-Tauhara geothermal system includes the Wairakei geothermal field located 8 km north of Taupo and the Tauhara field to the southeast, with the boundary between the interconnected fields placed at the Waikato River. The Wairakei field is exploited by the Wairakei,Poihipi Road, and Wairakei Binary power stations.

The Wairakei station was first commissioned in 1958 and is now owned by Contact Energy. The field has been a consistent and reliable producer, with annual generation averaging 1250 GWh equivalent to a load factor of 93%. Present output is 140 MWe. At least 150 wells have been drilled in the field. The maximum temperature measured at Wairakei is 271 °C, but wells generally produce fluid at temperatures between 209 and 261°C. About 5300 tonnes of fluid per hour is currently taken from the reservoir for this station. Of this fluid, about 1500 tonnes per hour is steam and 3800 tonnes per hour is water at a temperature of about 130°C after separation in surface equipment. Some of the steam is taken directly from shallow dry steam production wells (up to 500 m depth) and piped to the turbines. -NZ Geothermal Association

A New Source of Energy

We also saw a chicken.

River Hike

While driving around the outskirts of Rotorua, we found a trail along the river that leads to the lake. Along the river we came across a cave, a set of really powerful rapids, and an old, rusted hydroelectric powerstation.

Makes you want to get an inflatable raft, no?


The path down the cliff to the cave.

The cave. In wartime, the local Maori tribe used to lower their families by ropes to this cave to hide them.

The remains of the power plant and a rusted turbine. This plant was built alongside the river, rather than as a dam across the river. The water shot along the raceway and powered several turbines.

Some shots along the trail, and a few from quite a ways off the trail: