Key Highlights :
1. The South Taranaki Bight offshore wind project is not even on the drawing board yet, but the potential of New Zealand for power generation at sea is drawing worldwide attention.
2. The New Zealand Super Fund last year announced that together with Danish investment firm Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) it would jointly investigate the feasibility of the project in the South Taranaki Bight.
3. While the project, expected to cost about $5 billion, is still in its formative stage, the wind energy world is excited about the possibilities, international wind power expert Stewart Mullin said.
4. Wind power, particularly offshore wind, has proven itself to be a good way of displacing coal-powered baseload, or continuous, electricity supply, said Mullin, who is chief operating officer of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).
5. Brussels-based GWEC represents the wind associations in various countries, and has the major and minor wind industry companies as its members.
6. Mullin, who has a background with turbine makers Vestas and Siemens Gamesa in Denmark, was in New Plymouth to address the third Offshore Renewable Energy Forum.
7. He said New Zealand had been described as “the Saudi Arabia of wind”.
8. “There is nothing in the resource area that would stop New Zealand from being a world leader.”
9. The experience overseas had shown that wind power, particularly offshore wind power, can offset fossil-fuelled baseload power because wind at sea is typically more constant than it is on land.
10. In Europe, more importance was being placed on offshore wind
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The South Taranaki Bight offshore wind project is not even on the drawing board, yet the potential of New Zealand for power generation at sea is drawing worldwide attention. The New Zealand Super Fund last year announced that together with Danish investment firm Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) it would jointly investigate the feasibility of the project in the South Taranaki Bight. While the project, expected to cost about $5 billion, is still in its formative stage, the wind energy world is excited about the possibilities, international wind power expert Stewart Mullin said. Wind power, particularly offshore wind, has proven itself to be a good way of displacing coal-powered baseload, or continuous, electricity supply, said Mullin, who is chief operating officer of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). Brussels-based GWEC represents the wind associations in various countries, and has the major and minor wind industry companies as its members. Mullin, who has a background with turbine makers Vestas and Siemens Gamesa in Denmark, was in New Plymouth to address the third Offshore Renewable Energy Forum. He said New Zealand had been described as “the Saudi Arabia of wind”. “It is clear that New Zealand has one of the best resources in the world,” he told the Herald in an interview.
