Contact Energy ('Contact') will close its 44-megawatt Te Rapa power station in June 2023, reducing the company's long-term scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 20 per cent per annum. 1 The Te Rapa plant has been operating since 1999. It is a gas-fuelled cogeneration plant, providing steam and electricity to Fonterra's Te Rapa dairy factory, and directing surplus electricity back to the grid.

The current agreement for Contact to supply Fonterra with electricity expires in June 2023. Fonterra will acquire the plant's auxiliary boiler and will continue to use these assets for its dairy operations beyond June next year, but the gas turbine used to generate electricity at Te Rapa will be retired. Contact has a team of 16 people at Te Rapa.

CEO Mike Fuge said it had been an unsettling time, but it was good to be able to provide people with more certainty.