100-turbine wind farm approved by court
Trustpower will be able to erect up to 100 turbines at its proposed Mahinerangi wind farm, the Environment Court has decided.
* Uplands Society still pondering costs order
After an interim decision followed by a further round of negotiations, the court has granted resource consents for a 200MW wind farm near Lake Mahinerangi, northwest of Dunedin.
It has set the maximum number of turbines at 100 and the maximum height of each turbine at 145m.
But the main opponent of the $400 million proposal, the Uplands Protection Society, says it is considering appealing the decision to the High Court.
The society still believed TrustPower’s consent process was “corrupted”, spokesman Ewan Carr said yesterday.
TrustPower had initially applied for an “envelope approach” — indicating the number of turbines it wanted to erect but not their exact location or the placement of earthworks, roads or substations.
During the Environment Court hearing in May, the court instructed the company to provide more exact details, Mr Carr said.
“The court roundly rejected the envelope approach, and TrustPower had to come back with a new proposal, which they were able to do within 24 hours. We believe the whole application should have been re-notified at that point . . . and people given a further opportunity to comment.
“The public have had no input on the final plan. The public have been duped.”
Appeals must be lodged within 15 working days of Environment Court decisions being released.
However, the society will have longer than that because the Christmas-New Year period is not counted as working days.
Mr Carr said he was not sure what the appeal deadline would be, but expected it to be towards the end of next month.
TrustPower community relations manager Graeme Purches said TrustPower had not yet decided when to begin the project, or how many turbines might be erected.
“[We] will now assess the economic viability of the project, with a view to being in a position to proceed when economic conditions gel. The current exchange rate makes it difficult to purchase turbines — unless that changes or the turbine price falls dramatically — and in addition to that there are still issues around charges for the high voltage direct current link [national grid transmission lines].”
By Allison Rudd
24 December 2008
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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