Winding up ahead of schedule

Site safety supervisor Richard Ireland, of Pioneer Generation, on site at the Mt Stuart wind farm. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.

Work on the Mt Stuart wind farm is ahead of schedule, with all nine turbines now in place and commissioning under way.

Pioneer Generation chief executive Fraser Jonker said the wind farm was one month ahead of schedule. Commissioning of the turbines began on Monday.

The wind farm would be operating by the end of the month and would be formally commissioned on November 17, Mr Jonker said.

Two Spanish technicians from firm Gamesa had been on site to help install the turbines and had been joined by two more to assist with the commissioning.

Three Pioneer Generation staff spent several weeks in Spain training with Gamesa's turbines.

The 850kW wind-turbine generators, with a three-bladed rotor 52m in diameter, would each produce 2845MWh of electricity a year. They would start producing power when the wind speed reached 14.5kmh, gaining maximum power at wind speeds above 61kmh.

Pioneer Generation's Mt Stuart site safety supervisor Richard Ireland said the most difficult part of the turbine installation was fitting the rotor blades together. They could take up to a day to assemble.

The main turbine assembly was completed last week, and three aircraft lights, flashing red at night, had been fitted to turbines 1, 2 and 9.

The nine turbines would be fenced off and the dirt tracks around the site returned to farmland.

Resource consent was granted last year for the 7.65MW wind farm on the southwestern side of the Manuka Gorge. It aimed to produce enough electricity to meet the annual energy needs of about 3350 homes and would feed into the grid through the OtagoNet network by December.

Pioneer Generation, based in Alexandra, is 100% owned by the Central Lakes Trust. It owns and operates 13 hydro-electric power stations and one wind farm in Central Otago and Southland.

helena.dereus@odt.co.nz