The Puketoi Wind Farm is a proposed
wind farm
A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...
project in the
Tararua District
The Tararua District is a Districts of New Zealand, district near the south-east corner of New Zealand's North Island that is administered by the Tararua District Council. It has a population of and an area of 4,364.62 km².
The district' ...
of
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
. The project is planned by
Mercury Energy
Mercury NZ Limited is a New Zealand electricity generation and multi-product utility retailer of electricity, gas, broadband and mobile telephone services. All the company's electricity generation is renewable. Mercury has a pre-paid electrici ...
.
History
Mercury Energy (then known as Mighty River Power) applied for resource consent for the project in August 2011. Consent for 53 turbines and a transmission line was granted in June 2012. Three appeals against the project were withdrawn in June 2013.
Mighty River said they did not expect to begin construction for three to five years.
[ The consent lapses in 2023.][
In March 2019 Mercury announced that development of the nearby ]Turitea Wind Farm
Turitea Wind Farm is a 222-megawatt wind farm near Turitea, Palmerston North, New Zealand. The farm is owned and operated by Mercury Energy.
Turitea is the largest wind farm by nameplate capacity in New Zealand, overtaking nearby Tararua Wind F ...
would support the future development of Puketoi.[ In March 2021 Mercury had no estimated completion date for the project. In March 2023 that the resource consent had been extended until 2031 and that the allowed turbine blade diameter had been increased.]
Location
The proposed site is in the Puketoi Ranges, approximately 40km south of Dannevirke
Dannevirke ( "Earthworks (archaeology), work of the Danes", a reference to Danevirke; or ''Tāmaki-nui-a-Rua'', the area where the town is) is a rural service town in the Manawatū-Whanganui region of the North Island, New Zealand. It is the ...
.[ The site will be connected to Mercury's existing ]Turitea Wind Farm
Turitea Wind Farm is a 222-megawatt wind farm near Turitea, Palmerston North, New Zealand. The farm is owned and operated by Mercury Energy.
Turitea is the largest wind farm by nameplate capacity in New Zealand, overtaking nearby Tararua Wind F ...
with a 220 kV transmission line.
See also
* Wind power in New Zealand
Wind power constitutes a small but growing proportion of New Zealand's electricity. As of November 2023, wind power accounts for 1,059 MW of installed capacity and over 6 percent of electricity generated in the country.
New Zealand has ab ...
* Waitahora Wind Farm
* Castle Hill Wind Farm
References
{{wind power
Proposed wind farms in New Zealand
Tararua District