A Bay of Plenty business woman is appealing a judgement which sees her having to pay back $14.4 million she took for her part in developing geothermal power stations in the Bay of Plenty.

Beverly Adlam had a hand in developing geothermal power stations in the Bay.

The Maori Land Court made the ruling last month when Beverly Adlam was sentenced on fraud charges.

The money is to be paid back to the Bath Trust, formerly known as Savage Papakainga Land Trust, and includes rentals from water used for a geothermal power station built by Bay of Plenty Energy in the 1990s, and the profits from the $42 million sale of the nearby Geothermal Developments power station to the Eastland Group in 2010.

During sentencing last month, Judge Craig Coxhead said as a trustee of the Bath Trust, Adlam was not entitled to developer's fees.

Adlam is appealing the ruling, claiming the judge's facts are wrong and that she was a trustee of the Bath trust but not the Farm Trust where the Geothermal Developments plant was built, so she has no obligation to that trust.