Te Mihi Power Station facts for kids

Early morning looking towards Eastern boundary

The Te Mihi Power Station is a large power plant in New Zealand. It uses heat from deep inside the Earth to make electricity. This type of energy is called geothermal power.

The station is located north of Taupo and is owned by a company called Contact Energy. It can produce 166 megawatts of electricity.

How Te Mihi Power Station Was Approved

Before building a big power station, companies need special permission. This permission is called a "resource consent." For Te Mihi, the Minister for the Environment, Trevor Mallard, got involved. He is a government official who looks after New Zealand's environment.

The Minister asked a special group, called a Board of Enquiry, to review the plans. This group looked at everything carefully. They decided to give permission for the power station. However, they added some important rules that the builders had to follow.

Using Earth's Heat for Power

Te Mihi Power Station gets its energy from the Wairakei geothermal field. This field is part of the Taupo Volcanic Zone. The Taupo Volcanic Zone is an area where the Earth's crust is very active. This activity creates a lot of heat underground.

Te Mihi is part of a bigger plan. It is slowly replacing parts of the older Wairakei Power Station. When Te Mihi started working, the Wairakei station produced less power. But overall, New Zealand gained about 114 more megawatts of electricity.

Building the Te Mihi Station

Building Te Mihi Power Station was a huge project. Several companies worked together to design and build it. These companies were McConnell Dowell, SNC-Lavalin, and Parsons Brinckerhoff.

The power station uses two large steam turbines. These turbines were made by a company called Toshiba. Each turbine can produce 83 megawatts of power. The total cost to build the station was about NZ$623 million. Te Mihi Power Station officially opened in August 2014.

Eastern boundary where steam is introduced to the plant