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NEWS RELEASE It’s electrified! Markets power New Zealand’s largest wind farm project 26 October 2021 – The near-complete northern zone of Mercury’s Turitea wind farm celebrates an anniversary this week, and is looking forward to delivering 2% more renewable energy to the National Grid.
October 2019: Energy Minister Megan Woods marks the start of construction
October 2021: Looking across the 33 turbines of the northern zone
“With the completion of the northern 33 turbines tracking for the end of this year, it’s a win for foresight and reading the signals from a well-functioning market,” says Chief Executive Vince Hawksworth. “Mercury started to explore adding wind to our portfolio of renewable generation assets back in the early 2000s. Demand for electricity levelled out after the GFC, and Mercury waited for the project to become commercially viable.” Back in 2019, this investment was market-leading as the first investment in large-scale new generation since Meridian’s Mill Creek in 2014. A combination of greater demand certainty, signals from the market via wholesale prices and advances in wind turbine design and technology meant the commercial rationale for Turitea stacked up. “When making the investment decision, comfort in the stability of the regulatory framework gave Mercury the confidence to make a significant long term capital investment,” Hawksworth says. “The energy sector is key to New Zealand’s low emissions future, and the substantial, unsubsidised investment in renewables like the near half billion dollars we’re putting in to the Turitea Wind Farm shows our confidence in reading and responding to signals from our well-functioning wholesale market.” From 2000 to 2020, the energy sector has responded to market signals and, without Government subsidy added around 5 TWh of geothermal and 2 TWh of wind to the electricity system. On a rolling 5 year basis, this reduced sector emissions by 17% and sector emissions intensity by 29%1.
1 Source: Climate Change Commission. Rolling 5 year basis normalises the impact of dry hydro years that rely on more thermal.