Teviot Valley Community Board chairman Raymond Gunn has joined the NZ Battery Project technical reference group in addition to the eight members appointed when the group was established by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in April.
The purpose of the group is to provide technical expertise and sector knowledge relating to the quantitative analysis the ministry is undertaking, including modelling, and to advise on other relevant social, cultural and environmental issues that may be brought to the group and lie within its expertise.
The group is advisory — its main role is to provide specialist input and insight to the project team as it works through options and develops recommendations.
Mr Gunn said his appointment was to provide a ‘‘community perspective’’ to the group and his local knowledge was key to his appointment as the only member from the area on the group.
The other eight members had met to discuss the lead option tabled by the NZ Battery Project — pumped hydro storage at Lake Onslow, northeast of the Clutha River in Central Otago — and had realised a local perspective was missing, he said.
Mr Gunn and Dr Stephen Batstone, Queenstown Lakes District Council head of strategy and asset planning/Covid-19 recovery manager, join the original eight members, who are experts from across New Zealand.
They are Dr Allan Miller, a member of the Electricity Authority’s innovation and participation advisory group; Greenpeace lead climate and energy campaigner Amanda Larsson; Ara Ake chief executive Dr Cristiano Marantes; independent consultant Dr George Hooper; Ngai Tahu Te Runanga o Otakou representative and Department of Conservation Te Roopu Kaitiaki member Hoani Langsbury; Wellington City Council environmental reference group member and founding member of School Strike 4 Climate New Zealand Isla Day; and Engineering New Zealand fellow Mike Howat.
Early estimates of the Lake Onslow project were it would cost about $4billion and the feasibility study expected to wrap up in May 2022 would provide greater certainty about the costs.
