NEW ZEALAND GEOTHERMAL EXPERT ON HOW HAWAIʻI CAN HARNESS ITS UNDERGROUND ENERGY

Geothermal generation, something that New Zealand is quite familiar with, uses water and steam from below the earth’s surface to spin turbines and produce electricity.

With Kīlauea displaying its dazzling power Wednesday morning, The Conversation spoke with Gavin Murphy, a geothermal consultant, about what Hawaiʻi can learn from New Zealand’s journey harnessing this untapped power.

“Aotearoa has had a long history of geothermal development going back to the late 1950s, early 1960s,” he said. “Now around about 20% of our total national grid generation is — just under 20% — is geothermal baseload in New Zealand, and I think there’s something over 20 separate power stations generating into the grid.”

After meeting with University of Hawaiʻi officials Tuesday, Murphy planned to connect with state lawmakers as well as the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism to discuss geothermal energy development.

“Here the challenge, I think, is understanding how an independent power producer of geothermal fits into the grid system,” he told HPR. “I see some parallels as well… So Indigenous land owned by iwi, by families, by tribes, and so the New Zealand model of how you work through that and that conversation with those landowners, some strong parallels to bring here to the islands.”