Project: Kaihiku Wind Farm
-
Clean energy for a sustainable future
Wind farms can provide significant and cost-effective renewable energy generation to help achieve Aotearoa New Zealand’s decarbonisation and electrification ambitions.
Since wind doesn’t require mining, extracting, or burning fossil fuels, it’s a much cleaner generation option. No greenhouse gas emissions are generated from the wind farm operation.
We’re investigating the feasibility of a wind farm located near Balclutha in South Otago to help Aotearoa achieve its goal of 100% renewable electricity by 2030.
-
Community benefits
We’re committed to being a good neighbour, ensuring open and transparent communication.
We will provide opportunities for the community and stakeholders to ask questions, provide feedback and ideas, and participate in decision making, with the intention of positively influencing the development of the project.
On top of providing sustainable, renewable energy we like to offer further benefits to the community. Once the wind farm has been commissioned, we’ll explore community initiatives with local groups and clubs in the region.
-
Economic growth and job creation
Once built, this will be one of the largest wind farms in Aotearoa New Zealand. This means a significant opportunity for economic growth and job creation in the Clutha district during both construction and ongoing maintenance and operations.
With new jobs in the area also comes support for local businesses (with the capital cost alone estimated to be around $750m-$1b), including hospitality, accommodation, builders, heavy haulage and more.
We estimate there will be ~10 permanent jobs once the project has been delivered.
-
Environmental considerations
This project will actively support the decarbonisation of the economy, and the goal of Net Zero by 2050.
Field surveys and assessments are currently underway to inform the project viability and the resource consent application. We’re also conducting impact assessments including cultural, visual, noise, ecological, archeological, construction or transportation impacts.
In selecting turbines, we’ll take advantage of the technological progress made, meaning fewer, larger, more efficient turbines on site.
Project Details
Turbines: Up to 73 turbines
Blade tip height: Up to 220m above ground level
Transmission connection: Substation connecting to existing 220kV line
Project status: In development
Maximum capacity: Estimated 300MW
Location: Near Clinton and Balclutha, South Otago
Wind Investigations
In late 2022, we secured the development and wind monitoring rights providing us access to historic wind data. From this data, we can see there is enough wind to make the construction of a wind farm of this size feasible. We’re continuing to use a mobile wind monitoring unit (LiDAR technology) to measure wind speeds.
Additional wind energy studies are also underway to work out how much electricity could be generated from this site and therefore how many and what sized wind turbines would be required.
Turbine Selections
Once we have resource consent and a network connection has been made, we’ll decide on the turbine model and manufacturer, this comes during the procurement stage. We have forecast up to 73 turbines which will be capable of generating between 4.2-6.6MW. They would be up to 220m tall to the blade tip.
The map and images shared are conceptual at this stage and therefore likely to change depending on the turbines we use, wind assessments, resource consent conditions and consultation with neighbouring property owners.
Impact Assessments
Assessments completed:
Archaeology, heritage and cultural – Initial desktop archaeological and heritage report indicates there are no major concerns.
Avifauna and ecology – Initial vegetation and wildlife surveys were carried out.
Noise and acoustics – Background noise surveys and acoustic modelling completed; results indicate all 73 proposed turbines would be within NZ standards for homes surrounding the wind farm site. Learn more about noise levels here.
Draft reports completed for: Transport, Civil and Earthworks, Economic benefits, Radio and communications, and Aviation.
Assessments in progress:
Avifauna and ecology – more detailed work is underway including vegetation and wetlands mapping; extensive long-tailed bat monitoring; and skink (lizard) species identification and population estimations.
Landscape and visual – we have engaged leading landscape architects with a significant amount of wind farm experience to ensure visual impact of the wind farm is minimised.
Archaeological walk through completed in April to identify locations of any significant heritage sites, report expected in coming months.
Planning
Network Connection
We applied for a network connection to the national electricity grid with Transpower in March 2023. To enable connection electrical works, underground cabling, transmission lines and a substation will be required on site near the connection point to the national grid. The substation houses transformers and other high voltage equipment.