Process heat in NZ - opportunities and barriers to lowering emissions

The Bioenergy Association welcomes the work being undertaken by MBIE and EECA with regard to process heat. The Association agrees that process heat is an area where transition from use of coal and natural gas can provide significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2050.

The Association generally agrees that the issues identified in the consultation document need to be addressed but finds the report very limited in its scope, analysis and focuses on a very limited perspective of the process heat market. As a consequence the report reads as if it is all ‘too hard” when a different approach would identify that a lot of transition from use of coal and gas for process heat opens up opportunities, is economic and is relatively easy to achieve. This is disappointing considering the amount of work which has already been undertaken by industry to transition process heat to be built on renewable fuels.