Wind farm at Raglan now a goer at $200m

State-owned power company Meridian is going ahead with construction of a $200 million, 64 megawatt wind farm near Raglan, in partnership with Waikato's lines company WEL Networks.

The new wind farm construction is starting just as Meridian is finishing its 62-turbine project at West Wind, near Wellington.

The Raglan project was first announced by WEL 3½ years ago, when it was expected to cost about $140m and involve a 72MW wind farm which it expected to have running last year. The cost had risen to about $160m by late last year.

The development, known as Project Te Uku, will be built on private land on Wharauroa Plateau, about 30 kilometres west of Hamilton, southeast and inland of Raglan.

At 64MW it will generate enough power to supply the equivalent of 30,000 average New Zealand homes.

WEL gained consent for the wind farm in May last year, but that was appealed to the Environment Court, delaying the project.

Project Te Uku is the first wind farm built with partnering principles between a community power trust and a state-owned power generator and retailer.

Meridian generates all its power from renewable sources – wind and water. It owns and operates Manapouri Power Station and eight hydro stations on the Waitaki hydro scheme in the South Island.

Owned by a community trust, WEL Energy Trust, WEL Networks runs the electricity lines network.

Meridian chief executive Tim Lusk said: "We are confident that the project represents a sound investment proposition.

"The site has a great wind resource, it confers considerable portfolio benefits to Meridian given that the company is a South Island-based generator."

The Raglan project has an estimated cost of $200m.

In May, sharemarket-listed Contact Energy was granted a one-year delay of the hearing into its $1 billion, 180MW wind farm north of Raglan.

Objectors to the 218-turbine project had raised concerns about how practical the scheme was, despite it being called in by the previous Labour-led government.

Meridian also runs the large West Wind wind farm at Makara, near Wellington.

Mr Lusk said all 62 turbines at West Wind were delivering energy into the national grid, and the wind farm was enhancing Wellington's security of supply. During equipment failure at Haywards substation, the wind farm injected 60MW into the Wellington region to help out.

West Wind had produced more than 120 gigawatt hours of energy since the first turbine was commissioned in March.

The wind farm has run for extended periods at up to 60 per cent capacity, a measure of the amount of time it generates at equivalent to full capacity. The world average for wind farms is 23 per cent.

Meridian said it was working closely with turbine supplier Siemens to identify and fix the causes of noise being reported by nearby residents as the turbines were being built and commissioned.

"We are confident that the project complies with our resource consent conditions in regards to noise, but we want to assure residents of Makara that we will consider all realistic options to minimise sound-related issues on individual sites," Mr Lusk said.

- © Fairfax NZ News