Ten new gas wells will be drilled in Christchurch's Burwood Landfill, in a bid to extend the life of the gas project.
Christchurch City Council's landfill aftercare officer, Grant Gillard, checks out one of the current gas wells at the Burwood Landfill site. Photo: RNZ / Rachel Graham
The gas from the landfill provides power, heating and cooling to the Christchurch Civic Building and the Art Gallery, at a saving of around $700,000 a year.
There are currently 22 wells at the landfill, but several of those have started to fail as the gas is used up.
Christchurch City Council's landfill aftercare officer Grant Gillard said new wells were meant to be drilled in 2011, but were delayed due to the September 2010 and February 2011 earthquakes.
"In the next month of two we are planning on drilling 10 more and hooking those up to the network, just to continue supply for the next few years, until the landfill runs out of gas. It is a very old landfill, but hopefully we can get out as much gas as we can."
"Looking here, half the landfill hasn't even been touched by wells," said Mr Gillard. "When we get over there we may find there is actually quite a lot of gas there, we might not."
The site operated as a landfill from 1984 to 2005, and has been used for gas since 2008 when there were 10 wells.
Mr Gillard said the earthquakes did little damage to the gas project, except having to repair some pipes into the central city, and re-route the gas which previously went to heat the QEII pool and sports centre in North Brighton. The QEII sports centre was demolished after suffering damage in the quakes.
Mr Gillard said the landfill should continue to supply gas for at least five more years, but they couldn't be sure of the supply until they started tapping into it.
The new wells will cost around $300,000 to install.