A panel of experts will consider consents for three proposed wind farms in Auckland, Manawatu, and Southland as part of a fast-track resource consent process.
The three farms have the potential to cut about 150 million kilograms of carbon emissions, generate 419 megawatts of electricity at peak output, and create up to 840 construction jobs.
The largest of the three was Contact Energy’s proposed Southland Wind Farm east of Wyndham, which would operate 55 wind turbines and generate 300 Mw at peak output.
Another 18-turbine wind farm would be in Waiuku—across the Manukau Harbour from Auckland Central—and would produce 80 Mw at peak output.
Finally, NZX-listed company NZ Windfarms has applied to operate nine turbines at the Te Rere Hau Wind Farm on sites south east of Palmerston North. It would generate 39 Mw at peak output.
Megan Woods, Minister for Energy, said they would generate about as much electricity as the Clyde Dam.
“In comparison, New Zealand’s third largest hydroelectric dam at Clyde produces about 432 Mw. Generating the same amount of electricity using fossil fuels would create about 150 million kilograms of CO2 emissions,” she said in a press release.
The fast-track consenting process was a temporary measure created in the COVID-19 recovery legislation, and has been used to accelerate various Government priorities.
David Parker, Minister for the Environment, said the fast-track process will become permanent in the the Natural and Built Environments Bill that will become law this month.
“Fast track reduced consenting time by an average of 18 months per project, saving infrastructure builders time and money,” he said.
“Retaining the fast-track consenting process will be crucial to reducing emissions and improving our economic security by increasing domestic renewable energy generation”.
The National Party have also promised a much faster consenting process for clean energy projects, aided by a national policy statement.
Solar panels
The Government has also fast-tracked nine solar power projects, which could generate two and half times the output of Clyde Dam if approved.
“If approved, the nine solar projects will add 1,147 megawatts of power to the national grid at peak output – almost three times the output of the 432 Mw Clyde Dam,” Parker said.
Woods said allowing renewable electricity generation and transmission to be built would help New Zealand meet its domestic and international carbon emission targets.
The Government’s goals are for half of all energy needs to be met by renewable energy by 2035, and for 100% of energy generation to be renewable by 2050.
Meanwhile a veteran energy expert is sounding a note of caution about this announcement.
Greg Sise of the Dunedin consultancy Energy Link thinks having more wind farms will not address the electricity system's biggest challenge right now.
That challenge is the problem of intermittency when the wind stops blowing and the difficulty that systems like the Huntly power scheme have in providing back up.
This problem was described in forthright language by Transpower in May and again a month later.
"The wind farms help you with dry years and getting to 100% renewable electricity," says Greg Sise.
"But they are obviously not going to help you meet peak demand, at least not reliably.
"That is pretty much a given."
There is an extra problem with the fact that fast-tracking resource consent does not mean resource consent will necessarily be given.
And even then, the consented wind farms might not be built, if the economics do not stack up.
Several commentators have noted that the chance that the Lake Onslow pumped hydro scheme will be built is disincentivising alternative renewable schemes.
That is because the scale of Lake Onslow's output would overwhelm demand from other sources.
23 Comments
More knee jerk election virtue signalling:
https://www.nzcpr.com/wind-and-solar-power-need-storage/
https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/bryan-leyland-storage-the-achi…
Just start building NI transmission lines from Manapouri now
This is blatant rush stuff policy, on the hoof by a never- never land government 10 weeks out from an election in which they are odds on to lose power. This is all New Zealand has had for six years, words, words and more words and all of a sudden lots more words about crime, roads, power, and soon parental leave and anything that whistles and strikes a gong. What a rush of vapid blood indeed.
Absolutely spot on in my opinion. This government is an absolute and utter joke. There's also never any mention of the physical and practical reality that with current technology the marginal costs to reach 100% renewable from 80% exponentially increase. That last 5% may cost the same or more as the first 80%. I don't point this out to rubbish the goal/idea but rather to demonstrate these incompetents have no idea of what it will actually take. Add the fragmentation of local network owners and other issues and all I see is rapidly inflating power prices to fund electrification. NZ isn't likely far from the consumer's best economic case being a standalone system and grid disconnection.
If they get fast track consent , then they should have to proceed. There are already consented wind farms that have not proceeded , because the market hasn't been lucrative enough . There needs to be a mechanisim where renewable is favoured over fossil , that should be the ETS, but would need to be alot higher than it is now .
On RNZ Hipkins is quoted "Hipkins said the projects would mean cheaper power prices for families for decades into the future."
How exactly does solar, producing oodles of unwanted power in the middle of the summer day, lower prices governed by expensive winter morning and evening peak power periods?
Thinking a franction further into the future.. solar would be perfect for charging battery electric cars whilst parked up during the day. Then it is no longer oodles of unwanted power but cheap car charging, and ultimately a perfect solution if we can then plug our cars back into our houses to supply cheap power at peak times when we are at home morning and night.
At the end of the day, more supply I think is a good thing over all.
don't EVs need charging in winter too? A problem for solar is its seasonality is in sync with hydro. if it was the opposite then it could be a compliment, but instead it will make winter shortages worse.
Unless we build onsolow and get the storage capacity needed to shift summer energy generation into winter consumption..
Unwanted power? So power at midday from hydro and gas is fine, but solar isn't? It's clearly a more optimal mix to have more renewables during the day and save more of our quite limited hydro resources for morning & evening peaks.
Having managed an energy budget I can assure you that day time power is often not cheap on the spot market. It was only a year or so back that spot prices were regularly 20c/kWh+ and Lake Taupo was half empty. El Nino may yet cause water shortages in the dams.
It doesn't. The business models that fund solar power systems are based on inflationary power prices because solar systems are static non scalable systems. All of that is a little harder now with high interest rates which also increases the price of equity. For sure the tech is good and has a place but believing that somehow it will lower prices is nonsense. Furthermore lots of large scale solar will necessitate low voltage grid upgrades and this is hazardous because of the structure and incentives built into the market.
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