Mount Stuart Wind Farm
Located near the Manuka Gorge in Otago, near Lawrence the historic gold mining town.
Commissioned: 2011
Turbines Details: Nine 45m turbines with 26m long blades
Annual Generation: 21 GWh
Mount Stuart Wind Farm
Mt. Stuart wind farm is midway through the Manuka Gorge, near the town of Lawrence in the South Island. It is built on privately owned farmland.
The wind farm has nine turbines, with a combined generating capacity of 7.65MW. The 850kW turbines were built by Gamesa, a leading wind turbine manufacturer based in Spain. The turbines have 45 metre towers, and the blades have 52 metre total rotor diameter. The Gamesa machines use a smart converter combined with variable speed and pitch technology to maximise the turbine’s output from wind speeds as low as 3m/s to a maximum of 28m/s. The active yaw system ensures optimum adaptation to complex terrain, while the predictive maintenance system monitors for early warning of main component faults. Mt. Stuart was the first wind farm in New Zealand to use Gamesa turbines.
The wind turbines are designed to operate automatically with no operator intervention required under normal operating conditions.
Over 110 cubic metres of concrete was used in the construction of each tower base, including eight precast panels of 1.1 x 5m to form the base. Precast panels were also used for cable ducting and the base for the 690 - 33,000V transformers, which, contrary to original design, were installed outside of the towers. The benefits of this were two-fold, making the transformer totally accessible, while eliminating the need for a substation at the point of connection. There is approximately 2km of underground 33kV cabling connecting the windfarm to the lines network.
Mount Stuart Wind Farm