Comment by pleb_nz
3 years ago
So does NZ.... Man this place blows especially in Canterbury where I am. Nearly every single day it's windy enough that it annoys and sometimes ruins being outside. I must say 3 to 4 times a week 'f** this windy hole' to someone.
Sitting in the roaring 40s trade winds why doesnt NZ have more wind generation is baffling.
The reason that all or almost all of the power you use is renewable. Adding more renewable generation in the South Island won't help the coal generation in the North Island.
Right now, investment in infrastructure needs to be made to move power from Manapōuri to the North Island.
As to why we are not replacing the 1.8m tons of coal we import from as far away as Indonesia with wind or solar in the North Island? I don't know.
Edit: If you take a look here, as of an hour ago we are generating 90+% renewable, but with 192mw of coal generation. Wind is generating at a fraction of capacity and this probably accounts for the coal.
There is hydro capacity but that might be from dams far south.
https://www.transpower.co.nz/system-operator/live-system-and...
It looks like there's just one HVDC interaliand link capable of sending 1.2GW, and dating back to 1964.
Why not install 7 more? That would allow the entire current demand for the entire of NZ to come from the south island.
10M USD per km, average 800km from centre of south island to Auckland, $8b in total. 43,000 GWh generation per years, that's just 2.5c per kWh over 10 years on your bill.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Indicative-capital-cost-...
The current HVDC link has had a lot of upgrades from the original 600MW to 1200MW now, and there are proposals to upgrade it further, but not nearly to the scale you suggest, as there just isn't the need for such levels of transmission.
Unless there were plans for major new hydro schemes in the South Island there's no particular reason not to just build new generation in the North. There is ample wind and geothermal in the North Island.
This would all change if the Tiwai Pt aluminium smelter were to close as that would leave a huge amount of generation that would need to go north to be used.
> Why not install 7 more? That would allow the entire current demand for the entire of NZ to come from the south island.
There is a very high bar for building infrastructure accross the Cook Strait due to environmental concerns.
The problem is a lot of our power is far south, not center of the South Island, and our costs to build are likely multiples of what is costs overseas.
Yes NZ is baffling. NZ is a place which could easily be 100% renewable with very little investment. There is plenty of wind, sun and the large hydro power station could serve as backup/storage. However I see dramatically less windfarms and solar installations than in a place like Germany which has much less sun and wind.
Not to be pedantic, but the roaring 40s are by definition not the trade winds. The trade winds are easterlies- they originate from the east and blow towards the west. The "roaring 40s" are westerlies, flowing in the opposite direction and categorically not the trades. Incidentally, NZ is an amazing place to take up wind sports, so I'm with you on the larger point.
There is more capacity on the way, but planning/approving these things is slow. The beauty of wind power in NZ is that the more you have spread around in different places, the more more hydro lake capacity you can keep up your sleeve for when it is needed.
There is a lot more wind power than there used to be. Getting wind farms consented is hard because people always seem to come out of the woodwork and complain and ruining the scenery, or the noise, or whatever.
But I think the bigger issue is that due to the amount of wind that has already been built, peak demand happens on cold still nights in winter. Building more wind without storage doesn't help there, and that's when they're forced to fire up all the gas and even coal turbines at Huntly.
NZ already generates most of electricity from hydropower and geothermal, so wind isn't really necessary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_New_Zeal...
Peak electricity usage is on the cold, frosty nights when there is no wind or sunshine.