Oil power plant in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. Approximate location -39.3829, 176.8875.
OilHawke's BayNew Zealand
Whirinaki is a 155 MW oil power station in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. It is operated by Contact Energy. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 116k homes (estimated). It ranks #14 of 50 New Zealand power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 2011, it is around 15 years old — relatively modern. In context, oil supplies about 1.5% of New Zealand's electricity; the national grid averages 93 gCO₂/kWh (88.5% low-carbon) (2025).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id WRI1000337.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: Wikidata P2109 nameplate capacity; fuel: WRI source-record fuel
Oil-fired plants burn heavy fuel oil or diesel, usually as peaking or backup capacity on islands and grids without gas pipelines; high fuel cost keeps their utilisation low.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
Operated by Contact Energy.
This oil plant burns oil or diesel to drive turbines or reciprocating engines. It sits in a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb) — Southern Hemisphere, latitude 39.4°S — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
Heating degree-days here run 36% below the median power plant in this dataset — a proxy for how much extra energy heated equipment must replace through its surfaces in winter.
Climate heat-demand index: 35/100 — this site sits in the mid third of the power plants we cover by heating degree-days.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in a corrosive environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C4 — High), with humidity / wetness the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
New Zealand has 1 oil power plant in this dataset, together about 155 MW of capacity.
Coordinates -39.3829, 176.8875 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Whirinaki is a 155 MW source-record oil power plant in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, commissioned in 2011.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 116,382 homes (estimated).
Whirinaki is operated by Contact Energy.
