Marsden A was a 250MW oil fired power station near the Marsden Point Oil Refinery at Marsden Point

Marsden Point

Marsden Point is a head of the Whangarei Harbour, near Whangarei, New Zealand, lying close to the northern tip of Bream Bay. It is also a major industrial area, containing Marsden Point Oil Refinery, the country's only such facility, and two large defunct power plant stations...

, Ruakaka

Ruakaka

Ruakaka is a small township in the north of New Zealand approximately 30 kilometres south of Whangarei in the Bream Bay area. Originally a small beachside community, Ruakaka has seen development due to its proximity to the expansion of the country's only oil refinery at Marsden Point during the 1980s...

, Northland, New Zealand. It was built in the 1970s, and acted as an emergency reserve power station, serving the load centre of Auckland to the south. It was cooled through a long seawater pipe out into Bream Bay, which is now used to supply an aquaculture industry nearby.

Following the commissioning of the dual coal and gas fired Huntly power station in 1982, Marsden A became less used, and it was mothballed in the 1990s due to rising oil prices. Several of the generators can be run as synchronous compensators to provide reactive power support, as voltages can fluctuate north of Auckland.

The facility is owned and operated by Mighty River Power.