New Zealand Environment Court Says No to Huge Wind Farm
What would have been the Southern Hemisphere’s largest wind farm, a $2 billion NZD ($1.4 billion USD) and 630 MW wind farm in New Zealand, is not happening because New Zealand’s Environment Court says that it would ruin the surrounding landscape.
This project would have powered over a million homes and made a huge dent in New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. It is not happening now because of a group of NIMBY activists and the Environment Court’s ruling.
This is a huge blow, in itself, to renewable and wind energy proponents, but it also brings concerns for future wind energy projects.
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Environment Court Says No to Huge Wind Farm
In its ruling, the court stated: “Despite the potentially large contribution of energy to the national grid, it would be inappropriate to put a huge wind farm in such a nationally important natural landscape.”
The court also questioned whether adequate effort had been put into researching alternative sites for the wind farm.
Project Hayes’ Planned Location & Local Opposition
The wind farm would have been located in the scenic inland region of Central Otago, home to fewer than 20,000 people. The region includes beautiful mountain ranges, rocky gorges and wine-producing vineyards — major tourist attractions. The wind farm would have added 176 wind turbines (each 160-meters-tall) to the region, as well as 12-meter-wide access roads.
Local residents who were opposed to the wind turbines in their backyard filed an appeal in the Environment Court right after the development, called Project Hayes, was approved. As discussed above, the court sided with the local residents.
What Went into Project Hayes & What It Would Have Done?
The largest electricity supplier in New Zealand, Meridian Energy, created the plan for Project Hayes. It spent about $10 million NZD ($7.4 million USD) on planning and preliminary work for the project.
The project would have created enough power to supply every single household on New Zealand’s South Island, over one million people, with all of their power needs.
What Are New Zealand’s Wind Energy Prospects Now?
Meridian said that they may appeal this ruling. So, perhaps, the project is not dead forever. However, with the situation now, this sends a chilling drop in hope to renewable energy proponents in Otago, New Zealand, and even worldwide.
This ruling “might set one of the most important precedents for Central Otago, Otago and New Zealand,” according to Central Otago mayor Malcolm Macpherson. “I wonder whether this is the end of big renewables of any sort, in this part of the country, at least.”
Likewise, Fraser Clark, chief executive of the New Zealand Wind Energy Association, said: “This has the potential to create a far greater loss for all of New Zealand by hindering the development of other renewable energy schemes,” and, “New Zealanders value renewable energy, but this decision has the potential to make it more difficult for other renewable projects to achieve consent.”
This is clearly one of the biggest blows to large-scale wind power we have seen. Will New Zealand pick itself up and move forward with wind power in another location?
Related Stories:
1) The New NIMBY-Defeating Wind Turbine
2) Biggest Wind Farm in World — in Texas
3) Maldives Goes from Underwater Meetings to Huge Wind Farm
Image Credit 1: sektordua via flickr under a Creative Commons license
Image Credit 2: loonatic via flickr under a CC license
Image Credit 3: Dru! via flickr under a CC license
What about offshore wind? That has a greater potential than inland wind anyway. Seems to me that putting this in a national park would be an eyesore creating new maintenance roads and development. It would have been nice if the article explained what alternative sites might have existed rather than blaming the NIMBY people for this project fail.
I’m very sorry to read about this and disappointed in New Zealanders, I thought they were more attuned to the Earth and conscious of the dangers of pollution.
Perhaps changes in attitudes will be reported, I hope so …
Mary
The NIMBY comment shows the writer has a bias. I opposed this and I live outside the region. Agree with Karl - neither the writer of this article nor the applicant (nor indeed the nation) have adequately considered alternative sites. There seems to be a real information gap here. The only attempt that I can find to survey the wind resources available in this country is a report by Connell Wagner
(http://www.electricitycommission.govt.nz/pdfs/opdev/transmis/renewables/TTER-App4.pdf)
Zachary, you have no idea what you’re talking about. This is cringeworthy stupidity. You obviously know nothing about the local transmission issues, other generation in the area, New Zealand’s market-dispatch rules, other sites, or the character of the land that was the be destroyed by a whopping industrial site. Project Hayes would have been an act of unmitigated environmental vandalism. There is no question at all that this was an excellent and brave decision by an outstanding Judge.
Firstly, Jim Beau is very correct about the writers comments. They are very bias. They have written an article in which I can only assume they know absolutely nothing about.
The whole ‘wind farm’ issue is very complex, but the power companies try and sum it up with a couple of ‘greenwash’ adverts and some nice sponsorship. They fail to mention the huge profits they make off carbon credit trading, where no carbon is actually saved anyway, the fact the wind farms need almost constant maintenance and currently we are not suffering from a power shortage.
This country is drastically under uses solar power potential and even good building principals that reduce the need for new power generation. Creating more power from these ‘power factories’ is mealy a plaster over the wound, we need to fix the problem and start producing some energy from our own homes. Alternately sea floor ‘tidal\current’ power generation has huge potential and is currently in the process of being tested in Cook Straight.
Get with the times, wind generation is old technology. NZ should be leading the way with the new technology at hand, its what we do best.
Keep NZ Green, not green wash
Overpopulation is the number one culprit in the world’s energy shortage. Also goes for food, space, water, whatever. 13 y/o girls have the right to be mothers and be supported by the collective. They all want electricity, cars, burgers, suburban homes, even section 8 will do. The number one thing New Zealand could help the world with is to perfect the benign auto-immune contraceptive contagion that could save us from ourselves. I thought it was working for Koala bears. But woe would be the rich, and the parasitic, some centuries in the future, without their obedient masses of wage slaves.
Karl, Jim, RR, nik: i appreciate your criticisms. i didn’t personally feel this was a good or a bad decision initially. i could see that it was a huge let-down to a large number of renewable energy proponents. i also put in there why the court ruled against Meridian — that they had not examined alternative sites enough. this seems to be an important factor in the decision and was clearly a major mistake of the energy company. apparently, clearly, and as I reported, this was not considered an appropriate place for a wind farm.
i would have reported in a biased manner if i said that was an incorrect decision or if i hid why the court ruled against the wind farm project. i reported both sides here, from what i can tell.
the decision was made by the Environment Court, i don’t imagine they take environmental issues with just a grain of salt — no effort to hide that, of course, and make it seem like it was made by environmentally uncaring people. my impression is that these are environmental guardians (and i think that others reading this article presume the same)
i agree with the comments about home-scale renewable energy, but that wasn’t the topic in this blog post. perhaps, i could have led into that more, but it is hard to compare when you’re talking about 1 million homes at this point, since even with amazing incentives for home technologies very few people are taking advantage of them and taking action themselves to use more renewable energy.
the mayor of Central Otaga and leading wind energy activists make clear that this may set a precedent for the future of wind power, or renewable power even. reporting that that may be the case is not biased. that is a clear and important potential result of this case.
more info could have been put in there regarding the potential of other projects, *perhaps*. however, given that this project wasn’t just an idea, but a $10 million investment, me tossing ideas in on “the best place for a $2 billion project” is hardly fair as well. would it be fair for me to say where the best place is for a large, renewable energy project??
so, i see your concern, but:
1) i had no personal feeling of bias in whether or not this was a correct decision. it is really hard to say, since it is a weighing of many different environmental concerns and not an easy topic to weigh, clearly
2) this was a let down to wind and many renewable energy proponents (not all, but many for sure) — this is something to report. this could end up being a landmark decision on the topic, whether the decision is right or wrong. if you are not a proponent of large find farms, you may be happy about it. if you are a big proponent of large-scale wind farms, this is probably a disappointment.
3) why the court rejected the proposal, from what i found on the topic, is in there — something to report
4) whether or not offshore wind, wave energy, or solar is a better technology requires dozens more posts. i am not setting up this post to knock onshore wind turbines as a horrible option for renewable energy. if i did that, i would clearly be biased against them.
5) i reported a case, a story, what happened in Central Otago and what the real and potential effects are. i did not feel bias about the decision, just tried to report the two sides of the coin on this issue. sorry if you did not feel it represented your side or if you did not want the other side presented at all
if you have additional information on the project, please feel free to add it!!
but don’t take this as an attack on the people who opposed the wind farm, the decision made by the Environment Court, or yourself.
Given the location, It is not surprising that the commissioners were reluctant to have it spoiled by turbines and roading. The commission has also indicated that they were not satisfied that the national economics were sound given that the consumer would have to pay for transmission, backup generation and other costs that the windfarm imposes on the electricity system. They were quite right to point this out and it is a problem for the proponents of wind energy to solve.
This is a win for the consumer as well as people who care about visual polution.
“visual polution” - give me a break! On my priorities list, visual polution (which is highly subjective of-course), comes last. I’m actually woried more about pollution that is going to damage my health or wider environment as as apposed to damaging my sensitive fashion sense.
If anyone out there in the world would like to boycott the NIMBY’s against wind generation, you can start by not buying Graham Sydney artwork or prints. He is a high profile oppontent of this wind farm. As you can see by his artwork, he LIKES desert landscapes, so climate warming works in his favour.
Also - give Anton Oliver the cold shoulder if you see him (ex-All Black player and Wind Generation NIMBY).
People need to take the responsibility of generating their own power. There are many per unit wind generators on the market. I believe home sized units will be the future of wind generation. These would be no more unsightly than, say, a satellite dish. The people will need incentives, however.