Last year after Greenpeace campaigned to stop another state-owned enterprise, Mighty River Power, converting the mothballed Marsden B power station from oil to coal, New Zealand’s High Court decided regional councils would need to take climate change into account when granting resource consents.

This is clearly a problem for companies using coal and it is not yet clear what the implications will be for gas.

Genesis says the case has set a dangerous precedent and wants the ruling overturned.

The company has a proposal in the pipeline for a gas-fired power station in the Rodney District and runs the Huntly Power Station, which provides 15% of New Zealand’s power and is due to have its resource consent renewed in about four years.

“If Huntly can’t run on coal, then we’d all be sitting in the dark in Auckland,” Genesis spokesman Richard Gordon told TVNZ. “Basically, it can’t burn anything else. Without it, the lights go out.”

But Greenpeace says if Genesis wins the case, it could remove the only legal control on greenhouse gas emissions of polluters.

“That is blatant fear mongering by Genesis Energy and it is simply not true. New Zealand has an abundant resource of renewable energy,” Greenpeace spokesperson Vanessa Atkinson told TVNZ.