New Zealand is one big step closer to accomplishing the ambitious goal of generating 90% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. The country already produces nearly 80% of its power from clean sources, including hydropower, geothermal, and wind farms. With hydropower approaching its natural limit, New Zealand is investing heavily in two huge new wind farms.

Currently, New Zealand’s wind farms produce 615 megawatts (MW), accounting for around 4% of the overall electricity generated in the country. The most ambitious goal aims for total wind power production of 3,000 MW, or 20% of the country’s total power needs. The two wind farms just approved will contribute 1,400 MW toward that target.

The larger of the two farms is being constructed by Genesis Energy. Its output will be 860 MW, generated by 286 turbines of up to 155 meters in height. The $1.46-billion project will be sited near Wellington in a remote part of Wairarapa. Twenty-seven rural land owners affected have signed land use agreements.

The second approved farm will spring up on the west coast between Port Waikato and Raglan, near Auckland. Here, 168 turbines will produce up to 540 MW. This farm is being developed by Contact Energy, which has agreed to limit the size of the turbines, minimize construction- and operation-related noise, and take measures to protect the local ecosystem.

The scope of these two projects is massive; the biggest New Zealand wind farm to date has only 62 turbines.

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens has placed an the largest ever order for wind turbines: he ordered 667 wind turbines from GE, each costing $3 million dollars, making the total order $2 billion. Pickens plans to develop the world’s largest wind farm in the panhandle of Texas.

The $2 billion order is just one quarter of the total amount he plans to purchase. Once built, the wind farm would have the capacity to supply power to over 1,200,000 homes in North Texas. Each turbine will produce 1.5 megawatts of electricity. The first phase of the project will produce 1,000 megawatts, enough energy to power 300,000 homes. GE will begin delivering the turbines in 2010, and current plans call for the project to start producing power in 2011.Ultimately, Picken’s company, Mesa Power, plans to have enough turbines to produce 4,000 megawatts of energy, the overall project is expected to cost $10 billion and be completed in 2014.

Mesa Power has leased sparsely populated land in the Texas panhandle, where the wind often blows during daylight hours when energy needs are highest. Texas’ Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) transmission lines will deliver what Pickens hopes will be “cost effective and reliable electricity generated by renewable energy power projects.”

The UK plans to build offshore wind farms that generate a total of 25 gigawatts. This is in addition to an existing 8 gigawatts of planned construction. This vast increase in wind power, in addition to the wave and tidal projects being tested in the Orkney islands, could power all of the UK’s homes by 2020.

The scheme could see turbines so large that they would reach 850ft into the sky. Each would be capable of powering up to 8,000 homes.

Britain’s current range of coal, gas, nuclear and other power stations are capable of generating 75 gigawatts (GW) of electricity, but less than 0.5GW comes from wind.

Business Secretary John Hutton will announce at an energy conference in Berlin tomorrow that he wants to see this target raised to 33GW-worth of wind turbines installed in the seas around Britain by 2020. If energy consumption remains stable this would mean wind power could supply the electricity needs of every home in Britain.

There would still be a need to keep fossil-fuelled power stations in reserve because windless days could leave Britain with power shortages.

Via: Peak Energy and Times Online