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Wind Energy Conference 2015

The annual wind energy conference was be held on 1st and 2nd April 2015 in Wellington.  Globally wind is performing strongly and in 2014 around 50GW of new wind capacity was installed, around 5 times NZ's entire installed generation capacity.

Capacity factors for wind turbines are increasing and the cost of energy from wind generation continues to reduce.  At this year's conference Graeme McCann from DNVGL outlined how and why turbine productivity is increasing and explore some of the implications for future wind farms in NZ, particularly the Class II sites.

Another area that is rapidly developing is grid technology that supports wind and other variable generation.  Grid scale battery technology is now being used and its deployment could rapidly increase in coming years, potentially providing an alternative to peaking plants.  Marcel Brzank from Siemens outlined new concepts in grid management, including grid-scale battery technology.

Many thanks to Meridian Energy and Trustpower as Gigawatt sponsors, covering catering and dinner respectively. 

Many thanks to Goldwind and Vestas as Megawatt sponsors.