The second stage is to the west of the current 12-turbine wind farm and will comprise up to 44 turbines, installed capacity of up to 190MW and an annual generation of about 550GWh, enough to power the equivalent of about 68,000 average homes a year.
When built, the full wind farm site will cover about 1700ha on the eastern foothills of the Lammermoor Range, about 5km north of Lake Mahinerangi and 50km west of Dunedin.
Mercury Energy had applied for the second stage of the development under the fast-track process. A draft decision about the project has been released with approval given to the project with draft conditions.
Invited parties have replied with their comments and Mercury Energy and Crown ministers had until next Monday to reply.
A final decision is due next week.
The second stage has a cost of between $500 million-$600 million.
The wind farm is in an isolated area and there were only two comments from members of the public.
The panel of Bianca Sullivan, Andrew Whaley and Maria Bartlett agreed there were significant national benefits and a range of regional benefits associated with the project.
The applicant had told the panel a New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) report said the additional capacity and annual generation from the wind farm’s second stage represented about 55% of the generating capacity required to be built nationally in a year.
‘‘It is therefore assessed as making a significant contribution to meeting increased demand and assisting to meet national emissions reduction targets associated with electrification,’’ the panel said.
The NZIER report identified the Southland-Otago region as a net exporter of electricity
to the national grid at present, but this was likely to change with the potential
construction of a data centre and electrification of industrial process heat in the region, such as the Fonterra plant.
The panel accepted the economic impacts and energy benefits of the project as outlined by the applicant.
It also said there were no principal issues in contention.
The panel encouraged the applicant to correspond with submitters Lindsay Brown, Sue Keen and Graeme Thomas over the landscape effects of the turbines.
The three submitters had land in the area and made submissions about the effects of the turbines.
Mercury Energy declined to comment on the draft decision when contacted yesterday, preferring to leave comments until the final decision was released.
