Makara windfarm could be boost for building industry

A $350 million wind farm at Makara will be a boost for the Wellington construction industry just as work in the property sector is tapering off, players say.

Though much of the $350 million would be spent on wind turbines imported from Denmark, "millions of dollars" was expected to be spent on products and services provided by domestic companies.

The proposed 210-megawatt Makara wind farm, to be announced today by state power company Meridian Energy, is bigger than the combined capacity of all the existing wind farms, which is 168MW.

New Zealand Contractors Federation chief executive Richard Michael said there was a fairly experienced group of Wellington companies which had worked on the 90MW wind farm at Te Apiti in 2004.

The 55 turbines had been installed in a little over a year and commissioned in December 2004.

Mr Michael did not expect there to be a problem finding skilled labour or machinery for a wind farm at Makara.

Property development had started to taper off "reasonably significantly".

From his discussions with industry players there appeared to be spare capacity in the construction industry.

He expected engineering companies such as Higgins Group, Fulton Hogan, Works Infrastructure and Fletcher Engineering to vie for the main contract.

The Te Apiti project had been interesting for companies, and Meridian had been a good client to work with, Mr Michael said.

The only other big construction job in Wellington competing for resources was the inner-city bypass.

A wind farm was not labour-intensive to build. It involved earth-moving and engineering equipment, he said.

The main contractor for the Te Apiti wind farm was Palmerston North-based Higgins, which had to construct a 10m-wide road for the huge 400 tonne crane needed to install the 105m-high turbines.

Higgins project manager Paul McKnight said the Te Apiti wind farm "was very good for the region's economy".

"You are definitely talking millions of dollars (spent locally)", he said.

A lot of people had worked on the site from throughout New Zealand.

Concrete, electrical cabling, reinforcing steel, aggregate for roads and electronic equipment for a substation were some of the products and services sourced locally by Meridian Energy for Te Apiti.

Higgins would tender again for the main subcontracting job at Makara.

- nzpa