Electricity generated from TrustPower's hydro scheme on the Wairau River will stay in Marlborough, according to the Tauranga-based power company.
This should mean reduced electricity costs for users in the region as transmission costs fall, the company says.
The Environment Court last week upheld an amended resource consent granted by the Marlborough District Council allowing the company to divert the Wairau River through 49 kilometres of canal and six power stations to generate electricity.
The $280 million scheme would generate 70 megawatts, enough to power 30,000 homes.
TrustPower community relations manager Graeme Purches said about 15 per cent of the electricity generated by the scheme would be fed into the Marlborough Lines network and the remainder fed into the national grid, although even this portion would be used close to where it was generated.
Marlborough is powered by electricity from the Islington substation, in Christchurch, with about 19 per cent lost along the lines.
The Wairau canal scheme could mean lower costs for electricity users in Marlborough because transmission costs and losses would be reduced, he said.
"It will inherently mean [electricity] prices certainly won't go up and all things being equal they should stabilise or come down slightly."
Electricity generated in Marlborough would not be sent to the North Island because of the cost and power losses involved, he said.
Building the canal would bring "significant" employment to the region, he said.
"There are certainly people in the area able to do the work and even if it's an outside contracting firm they employ local labour – that's the nature of the beast," he said.
He could not say when construction would begin, but said there would be at least 12 months of planning. The company needed to liaise further with landowners, and engineers needed to finalise the design and geotechnical work.
The hydro scheme would make irrigation cheaper and easier and land more valuable because the water from the canal would be gravity fed, eliminating the cost of pumping, Mr Purches said.
The canal was being designed to withstand major earthquakes, he said. "They [landowners] should be comfortable about it. I mean, their houses may be down around their ears [after an earthquake] but they're not going to get flooded."
It would be difficult to find anything legally wrong with the decision that would give objectors grounds for an appeal because it was based on fact and followed the Resource Management Act.
Members of the Save the Wairau group opposed to the project will meet on Wednesday. Further details, page 3
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