Trustpower's proposed 240 MW Kaiwera Downs windfarm near Gore has been granted resource consent. It may yet be appealed to the Environment Court, but if not, they expect to start construction in three months, and be generating in three years.
This takes the amount of wind consented in Otago/Southland to over 1100 MW. Most of it is currently being appealed to the Environment Court, but even if the most controversial project, Project Hayes, is rejected it will still see Otago become the wind generation capital of New Zealand for a while. Which will certainly help next time we have dry weather down south.
