Native-to-Native: Hawaiian group signs on to help New Zealand geothermal development

In New Zealand, Innovations Development Group (IDG), based in Honolulu, has signed with New Zealand’s Eastland Group to develop the Te Ahi O Maui geothermal project. The deal includes the exclusive development right for 420 acres in Kawerau on a trust block belonging to the indigenous Maori people.

There is an existing commercially viable geothermal well on the land, but Eastland Group chief executive Matt Todd said that the entire area has shown a significant additional resource beneath the surface.

IDG looks to a world where indigenous leaders and their beneficiaries can shape and influence local, regional, and global policies that are rooted in the values and traditions of their culture through the advancement of economic development. The company’s goal is to emerge as International leaders in the renewable and sustainable low emission energy generation industries through the development of Native-to-Native Joint Venture Partnerships throughout the Pacific.

“This is an exciting development for us to be involved in,” says Todd. “While Gisborne based Eastland Group is a large local business, it is not a multinational or huge corporate, and as a result we have similar provincial values with a strong sense of community responsibility, as does the Trust [IDG] we are working with on this project.”

The new operation is not far from Eastland Group’s 9 megawatt geothermal power station, bought in early 2010. Eastland wishes to expand further into the power generation sector focusing on renewable energy.

The project will be done in stages, with stage one to be a 10 MW to 15 MW plant with a capital cost of $45 million to $60 million. The power generated will be fed back into the Bay of Plenty community using local electricity lines, where possible.

The project’s name, Te Ahi O Maui, which loosely translated means “the fire of Maui”, is a curiosity, and links the two islands through volcanic activity. It is said that the ngawha’s (geothermal fluid) journeyed from Hawaii to Aotearoa, with the belief that the Chief Ngatoroirangi summoned the heat from his homeland Hawaii’iki. The demigod Maui sent it from Hawaii through another demigod Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire. Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand.