On the Tararua Rangers is the
TrustPower Tararua wind farm,
along a 5 kilometer (3 mile) stretch of the range, with 103 wind turbines generating
67.98MW of
electricity - enough for 30,000 homes. This feeds into a national
grid substation
behind Palmerston North. The next stage - adding an extra 31 wind
turbines, each
generating 3 MW of electricity - enough for 45,000 homes.
For more information about the
TrustPower
wind farm,
click here
On the
Ruahine Rangers is the Meridian Energy Te
Apiti wind farm, 55 wind
turbines each
generating 1.65 MW of electricity - enough for
45,000 average homes.
This feeds into a national grid substation near Woodville.
For more information about the
Te Apiti wind farm,
click here
Searching for Te Apiti on youtube has
several videos on the windfarms.
On the
Ruahine Rangers, South of the TrustPower wind farm,
NZ Windfarms
has begun construction of the Te Rere Hau
wind farm, 97 turbines
generating 48.5 MW - enough for about 18,000 homes.
For more
information about
Te Rere Hau,
click here
The Palmerston North City
Council is investigating
options for placing wind turbines as well.
Another wind farm,
Motorimu,
is going through Resource Consent process to build on
the Tararua Rangers south of Palmerston North City.
More information soon.
On May
30, 2004 the contractors federation membership was invited to tour the
construction site. The Meridian construction pictures on this page were from
then. Many thanks to Meridian Energy and their Contractors.
unless noted, click these images for a larger version
