TrustPower plans under threat

http://www.businessday.co.nz/industries/infrastructure/4647056

TrustPower says $1.3 billion of wind and hydro-electric power projects it plans are unlikely to go ahead without a change in transmission pricing.

TrustPower has approval to build a 200MW wind farm near Dunedin and was this week granted approval to build a 72MW hydro project near Blenheim. Neither project, nor two others awaiting approval, are likely to proceed because of costs charged to South Island generators, TrustPower spokesman Graeme Purches said.

New Zealand gets about 70% of its power from wind, hydro-electric and geothermal generators and wants to increase that to 90% by 2025 to reduce emissions. Almost two-thirds of proposed new wind capacity is in the South Island. Purches said the government wanted sustainable energy, ``but they won't give us transmission pricing to make it happen''.

TrustPower is awaiting planning approval for a $440 million, 240MW wind farm near Gore, and a $185m dam on the South Island's West Coast.

The high-voltage cables were laid more than 40 years ago to carry cheaper power from the South Island dams to the North Island. In 2006, the Electricity Commission started to impose those costs only on South Island-based generators TrustPower, Contact Energy and Meridian Energy saying the link gave these companies access to higher prices in the North Island.

All other transmission costs in New Zealand are pooled and passed on to consumers. The South Island generators were charged $89.1m for the link in the year ended March. They will share the $672m cost to increase its capacity to 1000MW by 2012.

- Bloomberg

Transmission upgrade might not accommodate all wind farms

The variant nature of wind energy generation could be costly to power users, and it is possible a $100 million transmission upgrade will not accommodate all wind farms currently proposed, an Environment Court appeal hearing was told yesterday.Upland Landscape Protection Society counsel Nick Russell, of Wellington, told the Project Hayes hearing in Cromwell constant variations in wind energy generation would strain the national transmission grid, which would in turn cost system operators.Those costs would be handed down to power consumers, . . . Complete story »

TrustPower asked to look again at project

The Environment Court wants TrustPower to look again at its $400 million Mahinerangi wind farm project, saying it is not confident 100 turbines can be accommodated on the 1723ha site.In its interim decision released yesterday, the court rejected the appeal against the project by the Upland Landscape Protection Society but asked TrustPower to do more homework on how many turbines it needs and where they should go.However, the court said it accepted the wind farm would benefit the district, the . . . Complete story »

Project Hayes and global warming

Press Release: Roch SullivanMEDIA RELEASEProject Hayes And Global WarmingWhen the Environment Court reconvenes this month for Meridian's Project Hayes case, it will hear from leading international climate scientists whose evidence will challenge the credibility of the popular view that man made carbon dioxed causes dangerous global warming.Aucklander Roch Sullivan, who is calling the scientists to give evidence in support of his appeal, says that Meridian and Government rely heavily on the benefits of mitigating the effects of manmade global warming . . . Complete story »

National wind farm noise standard to be reviewed

National noise standards that govern wind farms are to be reviewed.Fraser Clark, chief executive of industry group the Wind Energy Association, said a committee of experts had been set up to review the 10-year-old NZS6808, which sets limits for all environmental noise.Members would include representatives from the health and environment ministries, local government, community boards and universities.Wind farm opponents complain that the noise standard is inadequate for measuring the types and levels of noise created . . . Complete story »

Against the wind

Wind power is the most environmentally sound way of meeting New Zealand's expanding energy needs. Right, says a Government struggling to meet its Kyoto commitments to reduce carbon emissions. Wrong, say opponents of the plan to build the southern hemisphere's largest wind farm in a remote corner of Central Otago.Snow flakes are swirling across the top of a hilltop plateau carpeted with snow and stumpy clumps of tussock. Facial muscles and fingers stiffen in the . . . Complete story »

Planned wind farm causing divisions in valley community

The aim of Meridian Energy's Project Hayes is to put 176 wind turbines on the top of the Lammermore Range, producing, when the wind blows, power for up to 250,000 average homes.The Environment Court is currently hearing evidence about whether it should proceed, and lined up in opposition are a high profile collection of people that include the painter Grahame Sydney and poet Brian Turner, plus rugby players Anton Oliver and David Kirk.Campbell Live visited . . . Complete story »

Wind farms don't ease power peak

By RICHARD WOODD richard.woodd@tnl.co.nz - Taranaki Daily News |
Wednesday, 11 June 2008

Taranaki's first wind farm, planned to be built on the coast at
Waverley, will probably contribute nothing to meeting the country's
peak winter power demand.

National electricity grid operator Transpower has revealed that
turbines on the three Manawatu farms have been generating at less than
1% of their capacity during winter evening peaks for the past three
years.

Bernhard Voll, the technical brains behind the 45-turbine Waverley
project for Australian company Allco Financial Group, says this farm
will probably perform no differently, because of a lack of wind at
winter peak times, but it was a small issue.

"Wind farms are not designed to be peaking plants," he said. "The
issue is that wind farms displace fossil-fired power generation and
contribute to the nation's energy demand throughout the year. Picking
on a singular issue of peak demand contribution is misleading."

The Waverley consent hearing was postponed last month at Allco's
request and the South Taranaki District Council now says it could
proceed some time in August.

Allco is selling assets to reduce debt, and that includes wind farm
plans. Sydney-based Mr Voll says the Waverley consent hearing will
proceed, regardless of any ownership changes.

Transpower system operations manager Kieran Devine says the country's
three major farms, clustered around the Manawatu Gorge, supplied less
than one per cent of their capacity during peak load periods during
the past three winters, 2005-07.

The highest peaks occurred in the North Island on cold, still weekday
evenings, for three to four hours, starting between 5.30pm and 6.30pm.

This is when the electricity price also hits a peak. There was not
enough wind blowing at those times to turn the blades fast enough.

The apparently flawed peak winter performance of existing wind farms
has come out of the first three years of a 10-year wind generation
investigation project.

Mr Devine says turbines on the Manawatu wind farms all behaved
similarly, running up and down the generation scale together.

"Either there was insufficient wind at that time, or the current farms
are all in the wrong locations and there's not enough wind system
diversity," he says.

"We have real concerns about the large amount of wind generation
planned in the lower North Island, because the preliminary information
is that they will all have very similar characteristics to the
Manawatu farms and that won't help with winter peaks. We'd prefer they
were spread around so that when one's up others will be down and it
would balance itself out.

"Fortunately, the wind characteristics at the new White Hill farm (29
turbines, near Dunedin) appear to be different to Manawatu."

He says power planners are just beginning to discover what wind is all
about because the detail needed for wind farm management has never
been required in the past.

"In the long term, wind is very reliable but in short term you can
never count on it being there when you need it in forward
forecasting."

The three farms generating from wind around the Manawatu Gorge are:
Trustpower's Tararua (134 turbines), NZ Wind Farms' Te Rere Hau (104),
Meridian Energy's Te Apiti (55).

"If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have
kept it all to themselves."
Lane Kirkland: