Mighty River Power relaunches as Mercury

Electric vehicle proponent and power supplier Mighty River Power is rebranding, under the name of its subsidiary, Mercury.

As one of the county’s big four in energy it has as its focus raising productivity in established power plants as opposed to constructing new power stations.

“We signalled a couple of years ago that we would not be building power stations for three to five years and our view hasn’t changed on that,” says its chief executive Fraser Whineray.

“One of our geothermal power stations, Kawerau, was originally built for 90MW and at full capacity will now produce 103 to 104,” he says.

“That is north of a 10% increase.”

He says similar is being done on the company’s hydro power stations, which will increase capacity at Whakamaru hydro dam from 100MW to 120MW.

This is being achieved by converting more raw energy into electricity and wasting less on driving the generating process itself.

Currently the future of the company’s Southland’s aluminium smelter is uncertain.

The Tiwai Point plant has a contract to buy electricity until 2030 but has the right to terminate that in 2018, after giving one year’s notice next year.

It has long complained that the cost of electricity is too high and the price it gets for its aluminium is too low.

If it closes, 572MW of power would switch from the smelter to the New Zealand market, swamping supply and depressing prices, so that any new plants might find it hard to sell their power at a profit.

The decision to keep Huntly’s coal and gas fired power plants open on an interim basis has been made as the least costly solution to this problem.

It will make electricity available in an emergency without committing to whole new power plants which could be stranded without viable customers if power from a shut down Tiwai Point floods the market

On the new name, Whineray says the change signals a new era of benefits for Kiwi consumers and the country from renewable energy and technological advances. “The new brand provides a single, clear connection with the company, its purpose and the country.”

He explains that like the bee, the company’s logo, renewable electricity is natural and essential to the planet, promoting wellbeing and real sustainability for future generations.

“We’ve been promoting the benefits of electric vehicles for more than two years and the conversion of our own fleet, announced in 2014, is now well under way. EVs are powered by our homegrown, renewable energy at a cost equivalent to about 30 cents per litre of petrol.

“E-bikes are another growing phenomenon around the world. They have huge potential to increase the awareness of this smart mode of transport.”

Key changes include new sharemarket ticker code ‘MCY’ on NZX and ASX and ‘MCY010’ for listed capital bonds; progressive rebranding of Mighty River Power and Mercury Energy to new Mercury brand; and separate branding of Mercury’s metering business, Metrix.