Waipipi Wind Farm


The Waipipi Wind Farm is a wind powered electricity generation project in New Zealand under construction for Tilt Renewables. This development site located between Patea and Waverley in South Taranaki. The wind farm will have 31 wind turbines over 980 hectares, generating up to 133 MW at a cost of approximately $277 million. The 4.3 MW machines are the largest wind turbines installed in New Zealand.

History

The Waverley wind farm project was initially proposed in 2007 by Allco Wind Energy but development ceased in 2009 when Allco was put into receivership.
The project was acquired by Trustpower in 2010 and further developed in 2012. The application for resource consents was lodged with South Taranaki District Council and the Taranaki Regional Council in 2016. It was approved in July 2017. The final investment decision to proceed with the project was taken in August 2019.
Site work started with a sod-turning ceremony on 1 November 2019. The turbine components were shipped in from Denmark and China through Port Taranaki. Commissioning of the wind farm is planned for late 2020 and early 2021.

Equipment

The wind farm uses 31 Siemens Gamesa turbines, each with a 130m rotor diameter and rated at 4.3MW.
The transformer of 145 MVa 110/33 kV Dyn3 will be supplied from CG Power Systems Indonesia.