White Hill wind farm is located in Southland. The wind farm’s 29 wind turbines can generate up to 58 megawatts of electricity. The 29 wind turbines at the White Hill wind farm generate enough electricity for about 22,000 average New Zealand homes.
White Hill was the second wind farm Meridian built in New Zealand, and the first in the South Island. Construction began in 2006 and the wind farm became fully operational in 2007.
Three local schools planted time capsules in the base of a wind turbine. Each year the children visit their turbine to learn about wind energy and see their time capsules.
Southland has strong natural winds that are ideal for power generation.
The White Hill wind farm is located on forestry land south-east of Mossburn. The wind speed and consistency are ideal for wind farming, according to both national and international standards.
Meridian widened 14 kilometres of existing tracks and constructed 10 kilometres of new access tracks for the 400-tonne crawler crane that installed the turbines. We took special care of the local ecology during construction, fencing off significant areas and saving topsoil and red tussock for replanting later.
It gets pretty blustery in New Zealand – which is good news for us wind farmers. We have five wind farms spread from Waikato to Southland, plus the iconic, solitary wind turbine in Brooklyn, Wellington. We’ve also designed and built a wind farm at Ross Island in Antarctica that provides power to Scott Base and McMurdo research stations.
Our Power Up community fund supports local projects in areas in which we have generation assets. It’s one of the ways in which we recognise the importance of local communities to our operations.
If you’re based near a Meridian power station or wind farm and have a project you’d like help with, apply now!
We reckon that by teaching Kiwi kids how we make clean energy, they’ll continue the mahi to keep Papatūānuku in good shape for our future. That’s why we’ve come up with some downloadable education resources that are aligned with the New Zealand school curriculum and have been designed and reviewed by New Zealand teachers.