New Zealand's Wind Resource

New Zealand has one of the best wind energy resources of any country in the world - average wind speeds of 9m/s, which would be considered as excellent in most other parts of the globe, are not uncommon. The total long-term potential has been assessed to be in the order of 100,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) per annum or approximately three times our present annual electricity consumption. This estimate assumes that only 1% of the total available land area would be suitable for the construction of wind farms.

Independent studies have estimated that, within existing engineering constraints, over the next 15 years New Zealand could obtain, from the wind alone, energy equivalent to more than 20% of present-day electricity consumption.

This potential has been assessed in a number of publicly available reports the most recent of which was commissioned by the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Agency (EECA) and published in May 2001. The report is titled "Review of New Zealand's Wind Energy Potential to 2015" ( 555kB) ( 888kB). Further details on EECA can be found at www.eeca.govt.nz.

This report refers to an earlier investigation undertaken and jointly published by EECA and the Centre for Advanced Engineering (CAE) at the University of Canterbury as "New and Emerging Renewable Energy Opportunities". It includes a substantial section on the generation of electricity from wind powered turbines.This report identifies wind energy developments as making the second largest contribution of all renewables to New Zealand's electricity supply over the 1996 - 2010 period. This analysis is available from the CAE for $90. (Details)

If you would like more information on the cost of generating electricity from the wind then have a look at our 'Cost of generation' page

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