The project would have seen up to 176 imported turbines of 3.6MW each, generating a total of up to 630 MW.
Known as Project Hayes, it was proposed by Meridian Energy to be situated on the Lammermoor Range about 70km north-west of Dunedin, near the bottom end of the South Island.
According to Windflow Energy, a South Island manufacturer of much smaller wind turbines, three of the four commissioners considered that the public benefits of the very large scale project, did not outweigh the public costs.
“Landscape featured largely in the discussion. The Court also criticised Meridian for not providing likely benefits/costs of reasonable alternatives. Meridian has appealed the decision based on points of law.
“The decision has caused a lot of media attention and much discussion in the wind industry. The main concerns are that it seems to raise the bar for information required for wind farm and other large infrastructure consents. Future proposals may have to include far more consideration of visual impact, landscape values, and macro-economics if the standards set by the Project Hayes decision from the Environment Court stand,” says Windflow’s latest newsletter.
The company said, “Our take on the recent Project Hayes decision is that smaller projects using New Zealand made turbines, will score higher in the ‘public benefits’ part of any cost/benefit analysis. So all else being equal, smaller wind farms using Windflow 500s, are more likely to be granted consent than very large wind farms using imported turbines.”
During 2009, the company completed up to Stage 3 of the Te Rere Hau (TRH) wind farm of 65 turbines on the north island and also started making 32 stage 4 turbines.
Christchurch based CEO/director Geoff Henderson said last month, “Another good milestone was being granted resource consent in October for all 25 turbines (12.5MW) for the Long Gully wind farm near Wellington. Long Gully is a very windy site and would be a great example of a cost-effective, modest scale wind farm generating directly into the local network.
“Our cost-effective, robust turbine, continues to prove itself in the field (literally) which is increasing potential customers’ confidence in the technology. Our business case is built on manufacturing in and for a windy, unsubsidised market and we are working towards building our pipeline in New Zealand and overseas in 2010.”
