Community Newsletter: October 2023
Kaihiku Wind Farm Project
We are committed to delivering new renewable electricity projects to meet New Zealand’s increasing demand for electricity and help the country meet its climate change goals. Aligned with this, we’re investigating the feasibility of a new wind farm near Clinton in Otago. This wind farm would be located across several properties. A site plan detailing the proposed location of the wind farm can be found in the community newsletter.
About the Kaihiku Wind Farm
Pioneer Energy has been investigating the potential to develop a wind farm on this site since 2022. Pioneer Energy recently entered into a partnership with Manawa Energy to work together on this wind farm. We have years of historic wind data, and we can see there’s enough wind at this site to make the construction of a wind farm feasible. We’re continuing to use permanent and mobile wind monitoring units to measure wind speeds.
The site has been identified as being suitable for up to 73 turbines that would be able to generate approximately 300 megawatts of electricity. The blade diameter of the turbines is estimated to be a maximum of 170m, with the tip height reaching up to 215m. The energy generated would connect to existing Transpower powerlines via a local substation constructed on the site along with a control room, office, storage space and workshop building.
Resource consents for the proposed wind farm will be required from both the Clutha District Council and the Otago Regional Council. We plan to lodge the primary resource consent application via Clutha District Council in 2024. A network connection application was submitted to Transpower in March 2023. We’ll continue to progress the connection application and we will need to obtain the resource consents before we proceed to investing in wind turbines and civil works procurement.
Open Day
We are committed to being open and transparent about our plans. If you have any initial questions about this proposed wind farm, please come along to the Open Day we’re holding:
Date: Wednesday 8 November 2023
Time: 3pm-7pm
Where: Clinton Community Centre
Who: The project team from Pioneer Energy and Manawa Energy will be there to answer your questions.