Mercury amends contract with Vestas to build 222 MW Turitea wind project near Palmerston North

Mercury has amended its contracts with Vestas to complete New Zealand’s largest wind farm at the Turitea site near Palmerston North.

Mercury has committed to building the remaining 27 consented turbines at Turitea, at a cost of US$208 million, adding to the 33-turbine project announced earlier this year. This will create New Zealand’s largest wind farm at 222 MW, producing 840 GWh annually, enough to power 375,000 EVs.

The 27 new turbines in the south will have a total capacity of 103 MW and will generate 370 GWh per annum on average. The southern section of the wind farm will use the same Vestas wind turbine model but will have a higher peak output at 3.8 MW per turbine compared to 3.6 MW per turbine for the northern section of the wind farm. This 0.2M W per turbine increase in capacity helps compensate for the slightly lower average wind speeds in the south of the site.