LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]


Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Wind farm may go private 

Credit:  Bruce Holloway, Waikato Times, www.stuff.co.nz 11 February 2011 ~~

Prime Minister John Key has defended the prospect of Te Uku’s swish new wind farm falling into partial private ownership.

Mr Key officially opened the $200 million project – designed and nursed through resource consent by community-owned lines company Wel Networks, and now operated by state-owned Meridian Energy – high on the Whauraroa Plateau in front of 250 guests yesterday.

Other speakers hailed the advent of a wind farm tipped to become one of the most productive in the world. But Mr Key made no apologies for the wind farm potentially being an asset for sale under National’s stated policy of looking to privatise up to 49 per cent of Meridian, New Zealand’s largest electricity generator.

Over the next five years the Government itself wants to buy $33 billion of assets and Mr Key said the best option was “to potentially release a bit of capital from things we own and invest it in things we want”.

“We think it [Meridian] could be a world-class company, but we can’t keep funding all these things. There is a lot of logic behind what we are trying to do.”

The Te Uku wind farm generated its first electricity on November 13 and currently has 22 turbines installed and 17 working.

All 28 turbines will be operational within a few weeks, giving the wind farm the capacity to power 30,000 homes.

That is assuming residents can still afford electricity prices, given tariffs have skyrocketed 72 per cent in the past nine years.

On that subject, Mr Key said it was a case of companies only introducing new technology and generation such as Te Uku “when it pays for itself”.

The best the Government could do was to cheapen the consenting process, potentially saving hundreds of millions of dollars in costs.

“If we really want power prices to stop going up … we have to allow new generation to occur at a cheaper rate and part of that battle has been around the RMA consenting process,” he said. “As a Government we have tried very hard to reform that legislation.”

But Meridian has had such a smooth ride at Te Uku that chief executive Tim Lusk heaped praise on Waikato District Council for its slick work in quickly processing resource consent.

“There were times when we thought our partnership was with Waikato District Council rather than Wel Networks,” he said.

Mr Lusk said Te Uku was Waikato’s biggest construction site and the project had given the region a significant economic boost.

Meanwhile, Mr Key said he could understand if some people disliked wind farms, given his experiences with one “just up the road’ from where he regularly holidayed in the US.

“Depending on what day of the week it is, I can’t work out if I love it or hate it. That is the reality of wind farms.”

TE UKU WIND FARM

Situated on 55.8sq km of privately owned land

400m above sea level

28 turbines

Will generate 64.4MW of electricity

Turbine towers 80m high

Blades 49m long

Turbines weigh 311 tonnes

Turbine foundations contain 1000 tonnes of concrete

Operates in wind speeds between 14 and 90kmh

Source:  Bruce Holloway, Waikato Times, www.stuff.co.nz 11 February 2011

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon