Pioneer hopes for wind farm consent

Central Otago power company Pioneer Generation hopes to know by Christmas whether it will be allowed to build a wind farm on one of the highest points in South Otago.

At a two-day Clutha District Council resource consent hearing this week, the company presented its plan to erect nine 75m turbines on a 15ha site at Mt Stuart, 14km inland from Milton.

Pioneer chief executive Peter Dowling told the Otago Daily Times yesterday that if consent was granted, the company would spend $10 million to $15 million installing turbines to feed between 5.5 and 6.5MW of power into the local distribution network.

Mr Dowling said the turbines would be about half the size of those TrustPower intended to erect on its site at Mahinerangi and would be imported from Europe.

They would be similar in size to the three the company was operating at its Horseshoe Bend site near Roxburgh.

Mr Dowling believed it was premature to talk about timing plans.

"We haven't got to that stage yet, to be honest.

"We need to get the consent first and then it will just depend on how quickly we can source turbines, and the economics - which are dependent on exchange rates."

The company had not yet decided if it would use new machines or second-hand ones.

"There's a lot of what's called repowering going on in Europe where they are taking out the 600-750kW machines and putting in bigger machines."

The hearing received 15 submissions and council planning and environment manager Murray Brass said the most common objection was about visual, landscape effects.

Concerns were also raised about noise, traffic and the effect on the community.

The hearing panel, chaired by Canterbury farmer and Environment Court commissioner Roger Tasker, visited the site after the two-day hearing and also inspected the Horseshoe Bend site.

Mr Dowling said Pioneer was in a "different part of the market" from the "major players" like Meridian and TrustPower.

"What we're looking at is the smaller sites up to five to 10 machines . . . connected to the local distribution network rather than the national grid.

"There are a number of farmers around, or land owners, who've expressed an interest in having a small number of turbines on their land and perhaps even having a share of ownership.

"It's just an opportunity we see and are trying to follow through on."

- mark.price@odt.co.nz [2]