From there the focus moved to Central Otago, where New Zealand’s newest wind farm was officially opened on Global Wind Day. While Mt Stuart is a small project, at only 8 MW, it is an exciting project for us as it marks the entry of Spanish turbine supplier Gamesa into the Australasian market. Also on Global Wind Day, over 250 secondary students visited a wind farm in the Manawatu and learnt about employment opportunities in the industry.
NZWEA is running a national colouring competition for primary and intermediate schools – our members have come on board to offer prizes such as the chance to go to the top of a turbine and a class trip to a wind farm.
All and all, we’re expecting to generate some very positive energy around wind energy in this coming month. New Zealand is a windy country and events like Global Wind Day help us enable this resource to really work for the country. Wind already provides about 5% of New Zealand’s electricity. The NZ wind industry’s goal is to be supplying 20% by 2030.
Wind energy in New Zealand
1997: 4 MW
1998: 24 MW (+500 %)
1999: 35 MW (+45.9 %)
2000: 35 MW (- %)
2001: 35 MW (- %)
2002: 35 MW (- %)
2003: 36 MW (+2.9 %)
2004: 168 MW (+366.7 %)
2005: 168 MW (- %)
2006: 171 MW (+1.8 %)
2007: 322 MW (+88.4 %)
2008: 325 MW (+1 %)
2009: 497 MW (+53 %)
2010: 530 MW (+6.7 %)
2011: 622 MW (+17.4 %)
By Sarah Vaughan, New Zealand Wind Energy Association, http://blog.ewea.org/
