Five southern local authorities will be involved in deciding if a large-scale wind farm near Wyndham will go ahead.
Wind Prospect CWP (NZ) Ltd, which wants to construct a $400 million wind farm in the area, had hoped to lodge its resource consent application by the end of June, but project manager Shirley Ferguson said that had been delayed.
The company was waiting for final designs on a switching yard device which would connect the wind farm to Transpower's main transmission line between Clinton and Gore.
She did not know how long that would take, or when the application would be filed.
The company would be lodging one "overall package" with the five councils - Southland District Council, Environment Southland, Gore District Council, Clutha District Council and Otago Regional Council - which would be involved with the consent process.
The company also confirmed it would not be asking the Ministry for the Environment to "call in" the project, which could have led to the Government deciding consent.
Instead, it will follow the usual process of calling for submissions and holding a hearing.
Ms Ferguson expected the Southland District Council would be the lead authority and all five councils would convene a joint hearing.
A venue for this would be decided by the Southland authority.
She hoped the hearing would be held in a venue that was easily accessible for submitters but until submissions were in and officials studied them, no decisions would be made.
Ms Ferguson expected there would be a delay between the councils receiving the application and its public notification.
"It [the application] will be a big bundle of information and I expect the councils would need some time to digest it before they notify the application," she said.
Big wind farm
• Area: 6sq km
• Turbines: 50Output: 150MW
• Average households supplied: 65,700
• Turbine tower height: Up to 80m
• Where: 26km southeast of Gore and 15km east of Wyndham
• When: Depending on when resource consent application lodged.
• The applicant, Wind Prospect CWP (NZ) Ltd, hopes to have it operational by mid-2012.
