Contact Energy has received the draft Hauāuru mā raki decision regarding the company’s proposed wind development on the west coast of the North Island in the Waikato region, but it may be after 2016 before the project goes ahead.
The draft decision proposes to grant resource consents for 168 wind turbines and designation for the transmission lines.
Contact Chief Operating Officer, Graham Cockroft, said Contact was very happy with the draft decision. “We are digesting its content and will reflect on our response over the next few weeks,” he said.
Hauāuru mā raki would generate up to 504 megawatts of power from 168 turbines, which is enough renewable energy to power around 170,000 average homes. The site runs from four kilometres south of Port Waikato to Te Akau, around 10 kilometres north of Raglan.
Contact also recently won consents for its proposed 156MW Waitahora wind farm in the Manawatu, but is committing first to constructing some 410MW of new geothermal generation at its Te Mihi and Tauhara 2 sites, near Taupo.
“Tauhara is ahead of wind on basic economics,” Baldwin said at the profit briefing.
The HMR consents did not come easily, with Contact returning to the drawing board after a first round of consent hearings in 2009.
But detail on capital expenditure plans released with Contact’s half-year profit announcement earlier this week revealed no new investment is planned in wind over the current forecast horizon, out to 2016, so it apppears it will be some years before the Te Akau wind farm is built.