Mahinerangi wind farm 'nod' likely

The board of Tauranga-based TrustPower is expected to announce early next year that it is ready to start building its $400 million Mahinerangi wind farm, near Dunedin.

Community relations manager Graeme Purches said the announcement was a "fairly high probability".

He expected the wind farm to be built in stages and the first stage might consist of erecting between 10 and 15 turbines capable of producing about 30 megawatts.

"We always said it would be built in stages and I would like to think the first stage will probably get the nod early next year."

In December last year, the Environment Court granted TrustPower resource consent for a 200MW wind farm with up to 100 turbines at a site on the Lammerlaw Range, inland from Lake Mahinerangi, west of Dunedin.

It is one of 12 wind farms proposed for Otago and Southland.

It would be the first built in the South since Meridian Energy's White Hill wind farm in Southland.

Combined factors have stalled various wind-farm proposals across the country.

However, Mr Purches believed various factors were beginning to turn in Mahinerangi's favour.

One was the improved value of the New Zealand dollar against the Euro.

TrustPower has previously bought turbines, for its North Island wind farm, from Danish company Vestas.

Mr Purches said the exchange rate and the price of turbines, until recently, was not favourable, "but all those things are starting to gel again".

Mr Purches said TrustPower also had the advantage of being able to build up to 40MW of generating capacity at Mahinerangi without becoming involved in the debate over who pays for the upgrade of the national grid's HVDC [high voltage direct current] electricity line that links the North and South Islands.

"If you build anything in the South Island that's not embedded into the local network - that's connected to the grid in any way at all - then you have to pay for not only the costs of the Cook Strait cable, but [also] the cost of any upgrade."

The first stage of Mahinerangi could be "embedded" in the local circuit that carries power from the Waipori hydro power station to Dunedin, and for that reason, Mr Purches believed, Mahinerangi "would be one of the first of several projects in the South Island, that we have on our books, that will get the tick.