The government-owned electricity generator and retailer on Thursday said that tenders for the construction of its first South Island wind farm were scheduled to go out over the next few weeks. The 29 2MW Vestas V80 turbines would be delivered to the Port of Bluff and transported to the White Hill site starting next January and first power scheduled from next April or May.
Chief Executive Keith Turner said the farm would produce enough electricity to supply about 30,000 average households – or nearly every household in the Southland District and Invercargill City area.
“Our wind monitoring on the White Hill site has shown us that there is a very good resource here, and it has the potential to make a major contribution to security of electricity supply in this part of the country,” Turner said.
Meridian’s first windfarm was the 90MW North Island Te Apiti wind farm in the Manawatu Gorge near Palmerston North.
Convenor of the Ministerial Group on Climate Change, Pete Hodgson, said the White Hills wind farm had been awarded 710,000 internationally tradable carbon emissions units, under the government's Projects to Reduce Emissions programme, which if sold at NZ$15 each they would be worth NZ$10.65 million.
