The gigantic wind turbines which are rapidly changing the face of Makara
As more of the gigantic towers are erected on the hills above the Makara coast, it’s becoming possible to see how the area is being changed forever by Meridian Energy’s West Wind project.
Including the rotor blades, each of 62 turbines will be 111 metres high, taller than the State Insurance Building in central Wellington.
Marine environmentalist Jim Mikoz took these photographs of components of one of the wind turbines, which was waiting to be erected above Makara beach.
“This turbine overlooks Makara beach but you will soon be able to take a bearing on it from almost anywhere including Porirua,” he says.
Barges are being used to bring the wind turbines across Cook Strait from Shakespeare Bay next to Picton Harbour to a temporary wharf at Makara’s Oteranga Bay.
The elements of each wind turbine (which have been supplied by the Danish company Siemens) are a 67 metre tower in two sections, a nacelle housing the generator, and three blades which are each 40 metres long.
All 62 octagonal foundations have already been completed, with extra strengthening on the windiest sites. And 42 kilometres of roads have been built on the hills so that the materials can be driven up to the foundations.
Jim Mikoz, who is president of the Wellington Recreational Marine Fishers’ Association, has serious concerns about sediment from the construction.
“Silt coming off the hills has settled in Te Ikamaru Bay and is being lifted with the sea,” he says. “The sediment traps have major design faults because the mud is directed into the sea.”
Among the opponents of West Wind were the Makara Guardians, who provided specifics of their concern in a statement 18 months ago.
The Quartz Hill Reserve Charitable Trust was another group which opposed the project. In 2005 it said the proposal “has been bulldozed through despite the concerns of local residents.”
As part of the resource consent for West Wind, Meridian was required to set up a community liaison group and a recreation group. Community members of the liaison group are Deb Compton, Dave Bennett and Ruth Paul. There are ten members on the recreation group which exists to “plan and develop recreation and visitor opportunities for the windfarm site.”
Meridian says its Makara wind farm will generate enough energy for 70,000 households. Construction will be completed by the end of the year. The project is Meridian’s third wind farm. Te Apiti north of the Manawatu Gorge was completed in 2004 and White Hill in Southland in 2007.
Meridian’s fourth wind farm project, also in Wellington, received resource consent in February. It’s Mill Creek, which will have 29 turbines, the same size and height as the ones now being completed on the hills above Makara.
And where’s the location of the Mill Creek wind farm? It’s to be built in the Ohariu Valley, even closer to the residents of Makara than West Wind.
And there’s more in store for Wellington. Soon to be on the horizon, as it were, is the Long Gully wind farm planned by Mighty River. Its location: the hills behind the Brooklyn turbine.
23 March 2009
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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