To date, New Zealand has 21 operational onshore wind farms with 653 turbines, and a total installed generation capacity of 1,263 MW. They represent over 12% of New Zealand’s total installed electricity capacity that generates enough electricity to supply over 620,000 kiwi homes a year.
In addition, there is currently an additional 2,200 MW of on shore wind generation in various investigation, planning and consenting stages in New Zealand and developers are consistently exploring sites throughout New Zealand for new wind farms.
Developers generally progress from holding a consent to building a wind farm once they are satisfied that market conditions will provide a suitable commercial return. It is not expected that all consented wind generation being investigated will be constructed.
Below is a map showing the operating on shore windfarms (in green) and proposed wind farms (in orange). Click on the turbines to find out more about each individual wind farm or check out the wind farms that are already operating , those that have consent to be built and some of the proposed wind farms that may be built in the future in the directories in the side bar.
Key
Wind farms that are operating or under construction
Wind farms that have been consented and those that are proposed but have not yet achieved consent