Tāhūhū rangapū/group chief executive Grant Huwyler says the iwi have spent the past five years exploring a 280-megawatt wind and solar-powered hydrogen development on their Harakeke block near Whanganui, in partnership with Taranaki-based clean energy company Hiringa Energy.
“We’re five years deep in this,” Huwyler said.
“If the stars align, boom! It could go. If they don’t align, it might fall over.”
The iwi see the potential development not only as a commercial opportunity capable of generating long-term returns, but as a contribution to reducing emissions in heavy transport, one of the country’s hardest-to-decarbonise sectors.
“We’ve spent a lot of time positioning ourselves to play a role in renewable energy,” Huwyler told Local Democracy Reporting.
“Our rohe is affected by hydro electricity that has already impacted our three main catchments – Whangaehu, Turakina and Rangitīkei – and we want to promote renewable energy that has no further impact on water flows and aquatic ecosystems in our rohe.
“We have a good wind resource that comes across land we own, and we have two groups talking to us.”
One is a renewables corporate multinational that wants to build a wind farm south of Turakina and in the Santoft Forest and its vicinity, and the other is Hiringa Energy, with which the iwi have a 50-50 development partnership.
Huwyler describes the development plans as massively ambitious.
The original proposal would combine wind and solar generation to power electrolysis – splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen – to produce green hydrogen.
If realised, it would produce commercial quantities of low-carbon fuel aimed at decarbonising New Zealand’s emissions-intensive heavy transport sector.
‘Strong demand’
As global markets shift more slowly than expected, the focus has broadened to include green methanol for marine transport, and potentially sustainable aviation fuel.
“We changed our focus from green hydrogen distribution to green hydrogen, then green methanol production,” Huwyler said.
“There’s strong demand for that product out there in Asia, where it’s used to fuel ships.”
For iwi leadership, the project represents both economic opportunity and an expression of kaitiakitanga across ancestral lands shaped by generations of Paerangi, Turi and Apa-Hapai-Taketake descendants.
The integrated wind and solar-to-hydrogen and methanol project centres on about 280 megawatts of combined renewable generation and around 100 megawatts of electrolysis capacity to produce roughly 15,000 tonnes a year of green hydrogen.
That hydrogen could be combined with green carbon dioxide to manufacture up to 90,000 tonnes a year of green methanol.
Backers say the proposal benefits from a high-quality wind resource, affordable renewable electricity, access to biogenic carbon dioxide from excess forestry biomass, existing methanol infrastructure and developing offtake discussions with shipping companies building vessels for the Asia Pacific and ultimately the New Zealand market.
Hiringa – a Māori word meaning perseverance, energy, determination and vitality – already operates a green hydrogen refuelling network and is developing hydrogen supply chains across Asia-Pacific.
It positions the joint venture as a high-potential near-term “Power-to-X” opportunity in the emerging e-methanol market.
Rare opportunity
“I think we’re quite fortunate to own significant areas of land where there happens to be a really good wind resource coming across that land,” Huwyler said.
“It puts us in a position to take a massive step forward with our entire picture of development. These opportunities are quite rare.”
While the project remains in the business case phase, Ngā Wairiki-Ngāti Apa’s ambition is clear: equity, ownership and long-term returns.
“We’re a landowner. But one thing we’ve learned from watching other iwi who have had similar or related opportunities is that there are ways you can structure these developments where you do get an equity interest.
“It’s not just about opening up our land for development, it’s about doing that plus achieving some level of equity and ownership in the businesses that are set up there,” Huwyler said.
“That’s definitely our ambition. You’re constantly looking for people who have those same values and that empathy for indigenous development, who would welcome that opportunity to have you as an owner in their business.”
The potential is “massive, massive”. But Huwyler cautions that final investment decisions are still years away. The iwi are targeting 2028 to lock those in, with construction potentially taking several years beyond that.
Success would mean “development on our land, returns from the land, ownership in some or all of the various stages in that value chain … employment”.
For Huwyler, who as a teenager wrote the Ngāti Apa Manawhenua Report – still being referenced by his iwi today – climate leadership is inseparable from iwi identity.
“Totally. We’re committed to our responsibility as kaitiaki and kaitiakitanga. That needs to play out in all of our operations.”
The Harakeke vision includes restoring up to half of the 390ha block to wetland alongside industrial development.
“If we’re going to do economic development here, we do the environmental development there and try to keep it in balance,” he said.
While acknowledging the environmental trade-offs of wind turbines and hydrogen production – including water use and turbine materials – Huwyler said the iwi are determined to help lead New Zealand’s energy transition.
“To be a part of that story with Hiringa of New Zealand’s transition to decarbonised fuels … that’s really cool.
“If we can get a plant of this nature up and working on our Harakeke site, it could be done in multiple locations around New Zealand rather than trying to have one big-scale site. There’s an alternative thinking that smaller regionalised plants are the way to go.”
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
