100-turbine wind farm construction expected within months

1.00pm

New Zealand Windfarms expects to start stage one of the 100-turbine Te Rere Hau wind farm on the Tararua skyline early next year.

Business Development Manager Chris Freear said yesterday the company was confident it had overcome previously perceived noise problems with its locally developed generator.

The company anticipates a resource consent hearing this October.

A transmission lines agreement is being worked out with neighbour TrustPower and the company plans to float shares early next year.

Financial support under the Kyoto carbon credits scheme is in place for Te Rere Hau.

Mr Freear said the Windflow Technologies turbines would stride southward from the edge of a forest block that adjoins the south end of the Tararua Windfarm, with road access from North Ridge Road off the Pahiatua Track.

Tararua Windfarm has found that turbines at the south end of its property are generally getting the most wind and generating the most power.

Te Rere Hau will be completed in four annual stages of 6, 24, 30 and 40 turbines.

Mr Freear said he believed the turbine noise issue raised during testing of the prototype on Banks Peninsula had been overcome.

He was confident the noise level of the Christchurch designed and built Windflow turbines would be no more, and likely less, than the Vesta machines of TrustPower's Tararua development.

The technical proof of that is still to come. Mr Freear said tests under a closely specified formula, set by Banks Peninsula District Council, had not yet been run because wind conditions had not been right.

The people of the Manawatu had a real advantage in considering environmental issues associated with wind farms, he said.

"You've actually got real wind farms there, so (when you look at) a lot of the disinformation provided by opposition groups, you can judge for yourself on what you know to be true," Mr Freear said.

Rural residents living off the land also had a basic understanding that the landscape wasn't just there to look pretty.

An open day hosted by International Pacific College was well received by about 50 people.

"It's a working environment, a functional landscape -- and when you have a piece of land that the fertiliser won't stay on, where the stock gets blown over, the trees won't grow straight, you can farm the wind."

- NZPA