Feasibility study of small and micro wind turbines for residential use in New Zealand: an analysis of technical implementation, spatial planning processes and of economic viability of small and micro scale wind energy generation systems for residential use in New Zealand

Abstract

Even though there might not seem to be any similarity between a holiday lodge on the verge of New Zealand’s Banks Peninsula, a satellite earth station on the unmanned Black Island in the middle of the Ross Ice Shelf in the Antarctica and an American stargazer on his property in the middle of the Arizona desert, they all have something in common. They, among many other people across the globe, use the free resource wind to generate eco-friendly electricity, facilitating small and micro scale wind turbines. Japan, the USA and the UK, for example, have already installed thousands of domestic wind turbines. In New Zealand small and micro scale wind energy generation still has not established itself among other distributed energy generation methods on a domestic scale, even though the conditions for wind energy generation are perfect in many places.

The aim of this study was to assess the potential of domestic wind turbines in New Zealand. It established an overview of small and micro scale wind energy generation planning and implementation processes to gain insight into effectiveness, feasibility and straight forwardness of the processes involved. Hereby, economic, technical and planning aspects of domestic wind energy generation systems were analysed to investigate the benefits from small and micro scale wind energy generation.