New Zealand Wind Icons

Wellington

Probably no region has more aggressively adopted wind turbines as a cultural icon with so few wind turbines as New Zealand's north island. The one turbine in Wellington was viciously opposed by residents of Brooklyn in the outskirts of Wellington, the capital. Nevertheless the turbine was installed in 1993 and has consistently been one of the most productive wind turbines in the world with an average annual specific yield of 1,600 kWh/m². The turbine sits in a popular park overlooking the city and the suburb of Brooklyn. Since it was installed the Vestas V27 has been adopted by the community and a proposal to remove the turbine was turned down. The image of the turbine has adorned a telephone directory and ceramic tiles on the sidewalk of Brooklyn.

2002-2003 Wellington Telephone Directory

Plywood barrier to construction site in Wellington harbor decorated by schoolchildren. Photo taken in September, 2005.

Ceramic tiles of Windy Wellington's single wind turbine. The tiles shown here are used to pave the sidewalk in Brooklyn, a suburb of Wellington.

Palmerston North

Cathy Sims sporting a skirt with an image of wind turbines. She bought the skirt in Palmerston North. Cathy says there's no label in the skirt so she doesn't know who made it. It was just happenstance that she wore this skirt the day I visited.

Palmerston North is the home of Massey University where Ralph Sims, Cathy's husband, teaches. Palmserston North is just west of the Tararua Range and the wind turbines there.

Woodville

I've never seen a community more aggressively adopt wind energy than Woodville, New Zealand. Woodvile is on the east side of the Tararua Range that runs north from Wellington. To the west is Palmerston North. Woodville is the gateway to the Manawatu Gorge through the Tararua Range.

There's no doubt when you enter Woodville that this is windmill country. While McCamey may claim it's the windmill capital of Texas, Woodville claims the title of wind farm capital of New Zealand.

Everyone in Woodville gets in on the act. Here is a promotion for a local service station.

North of Woodville are several Danish settlements, hence the Viking connection. To the south is the Tui brewery, a multi-story brick structure--an unusual architectural feature of the landscape. All are symbols commercialized by the local office of tourism.

The local tourist office sells souvenir refrigerator magnets and lapel pins sporting the area's wind turbines. Unlike most souvenir shops in the United States, the Woodville office of tourism does sell items actually made in New Zealand!

Mouse pad repeating the Woodville theme: Wind, Brewery, Vikings, etc.

Tourist brochure touting the areas features, including the first wind farm.

Local restuarants compete with each other on who has the best view of the wind farms.

Hau Nui & International Tourism

New Zealand's first wind farm, actually a cluster of Enercon E40 turbines, was installed in the late 1990s east of Martinborough, intself northeast of Wellington on the North Island. The Hau Nui project (Maori for strong wind) has since been expanded with a second cluster of Enercon E48 turbines in 2005.

For a recent (August, 2005) trip to New Zealand we picked up a copy of a DK (Dorling Kindersley) guidebook on the country. Lo and behold there was Hau Nui shown as a tourist destination.

Images copyright Dorling Kindersley 2001, reproduced here for educational purposes only.

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