Genesis CFO jumps ship to independent solar power generator

Friday, 20 August 2021

Lodestone expected last year that it would have all its solar farms built by the end of next year, though dates for its first have slipped by a few months. (Video first published in 2021)

Genesis Energy chief financial officer Chris Jewell has been recruited by independent solar power firm Lodestone Energy, in a coup for the market challenger that suggests investment in renewables could help change the structure of the market.

Genesis is one of the country’s three majority state-owned gentailers that, together with Contact Energy and Trustpower, produce more than 95 per cent of the country’s electricity.

It’s biggest power plant is the coal and gas-burning Huntly power station.

Lodestone is a new independent generation business backed by ‘‘rich lister’’ Gary Haddleton and Sir Stephen Tindall’s K1W1 venture capital fund that in May announced the country’s first major investment in grid-connected solar power plants.

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A rendition of what one of Lodestone’s solar farms will look like.

* Contact plans pipeline of 'large-scale' wind farms over next 6 years

Lodestone intends to invest $300 million in five solar farms that will together be capable of producing about 400 gigawatt-hours of electricity a year, or about 1 per cent of the country’s power supply.

It has secured sites near Dargaville, Kaitaia, Whakatane, Edgecumbe and Whitianga for its solar farms which it has described as “a massive turning point for the country’s energy production”.

Construction of Lodestone’s first solar farm – a 62 gigawatt-hour farm in Kaitaia – is due to begin later this year and should be complete by the summer of 2022, with all the farms scheduled to be in operation by the end of 2023.

Lodestone has estimated it can produce solar power unsubsidised at a price that will be similar to wind energy, which at about 7 or 8 cents a kilowatt-hour is the generally cheapest form of generation in New Zealand bar hydro generation.

Genesis has since announced a potentially even larger investment in solar, saying it is finalising a joint venture with overseas solar firms to generate about 750GWh of solar energy each year.

An industry source said Jewell had a broad hands-on knowledge of the industry.

Jewell said he was excited to be joining a company that was well-resourced, “with a strategy that was good for the New Zealand energy market”.

“The ability to help build something new, from the ground up, was a key part of my decision to join Lodestone,” he said.