'Support' wind farm

North Canterbury electricity supplier MainPower is calling on supporters of renewable energy to actively back its plans for a wind farm on the Mount Cass ridge east of Waipara.

Hurunui District Council has now notified MainPower's resource consent application for the 6.5km long wind farm, which means people can make submissions on the proposal until August 1.

"This project clearly has significant benefits for our region at a time when there is a lot of uncertainty about power supplies," MainPower managing director Allan Berge said.

"The Mount Cass wind farm will help secure supply for North Canterbury and it will do so using renewable resources.

"As a nation we face some big challenges ensuring we have enough energy to meet our current and future needs.

"This challenge is compounded by the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and use renewable energy resources, rather than burning fossil fuels.

"We think the Mount Cass wind farm is a small but important part of meeting that challenge.

"What's more, it's a local project conceived by a local company that will have some real local benefits and we encourage people to actively support it by making positive submissions."

Berge said electricity demand in North Canterbury was growing at twice the national rate and there was no local generation at all in the region.

"This project has the potential to provide enough electricity to supply all the homes in the Hurunui and Waimakariri districts and will add up to $38 million to the regional economy during construction alone."

Berge acknowledged concerns over the wind farm's ecological impact had been raised during MainPower's consultation on the project.

He said MainPower had undertaken a lot of work on the ecological impacts of the proposal and had received some useful input from conservationists during consultation.

"We understand these concerns, and have worked very hard to come up with ways of minimising the effects of building and operating a wind farm on Mount Cass.

"We have had an independent ecological assessment of the proposal which says the wind farm will result in only minor or no adverse impacts.

"In fact, it goes on to say that the long-term impact is likely to be positive because of some of the measures we will take to manage or mitigate the effects of the wind farm.

"We think that when you balance these measures with the greenhouse gas off-setting potential of the wind farm, the environmental benefits of the proposal are very clear indeed."

The resource consent application and submission forms can be found on the Hurunui District Council website www.hurunui.govt.nz.

More information on the Mount Cass development can be found on the MainPower website at www.mainpower.co.nz/generation.

 

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