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New Zealand is fortunate that it has an abundance of renewable energy resources, including hydro, thermal, tidal and solar. The harnessing of some of these resources is as yet, a dream; in the meantime our demands for electricity will have to be met from a sensible combination of restraint and effective management of those resources already on-stream, including the continued, judicious use of our coal and gas resources.  
 
Wind is notoriously fickle. No one knows if it will be blowing today, tomorrow or next week. Consequently, industrial scale wind generation poses major headaches for those planning and controlling the national distribution of electricity. During the high load winter period last year, our wind farms with a maximum capacity of 280 megawatts, produced less than 10 MW for 25% of the time and less than 30 MW for 37% of the time. Historically their output is 10% below average during the critical autumn winter period. 
 
For such reasons, wind farms will only ever contribute a small percentage of New Zealand’s total energy requirement. None-the-less wind energy is an essential element in the sustainable energy matrix and will play a particularly important role during the next twenty years while other sustainable resources are developed and brought on-stream. 
 
Wind farm development has proved to be successful in other countries, particularly where they have been developed on a small scale, close to the point of use and often under community ownership.
 

Save Central advocates the development of a rational energy policy which includes a strategic framework for the development of wind farms. Such a framework will address matters such as the location, scale, distribution and ownership of wind farms by way of specific policy, plans and guidance.