From Taranki Daily News - 11 June 2008

Taranaki’s first wind farm, planned to be built on the coast at Waverley, will probably contribute nothing to meeting the country’s peak winter power demand.

After a hard day’s work, Ottfried Wolfrum liked walking his dog in the fields and forests around his village of Netsche, near Darmstadt, Germany. Though he loved the countryside, the tall, bearded university scientist was not unhappy when he learned that three giant windmills were to be built on a hilltop overlooking the village.

The notion of using wind to generate electricity to power the nation is an attractive idea but one that is badly flawed. Wind is intermittent and unreliable, as our sailing forefathers discovered. When the wind dies so does the power.

What this means is that the average output of a wind farm in New Zealand is never more than about 40% of its stated capacity. So for example a wind farm that is rated as 150 Megawatts will on average produce only about 60 Megawatts of power. Consequently very large wind farms need to be constructured to obtain relatively low power outputs. This is expensive and with many adverse impacts on the environment.