Why get upset with solar power?

Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, February 9th, 2025 - 56 comments
Categories: act, climate change, Environment, greens, labour, national, science, spin, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags:

You have to hand it to the right. They have succeeded in making ordinary people oppose the most beneficial projects imaginable.

Like down in North Canterbury where a group of locals are up in arms at the prospect of a solar farm being constructed.

From the Herald:

A North Canterbury community is vowing to fight a proposed solar farm near their homes.

Australian company Energy Bay has applied to the Waimakariri District Council for a resource consent to build and operate a solar farm on an 80ha site on Upper Sefton Rd, north of Rangiora.

David Fordyce, a spokesman for the residents, said neighbours planned a street meeting after hearing the council had notified the consent last week.

He said residents had received advice indicating it was unusual to build solar farms close to houses.

“There’s still plenty of concerns out there, especially for the people living next door.

“We’ve got thousands of acres of poor quality land in North Canterbury which would be suitable if someone wants to put one up, so why build it here?”

Memo to Waimakiriri. We are in the middle of a climate crisis. Solar energy is cheap, it is clean and the only thing to worry about is a solar spill.

It makes you wonder about the political leanings in the area. The area is in the seat of Waimakiriri and near the town of Rangiora. It used to be held by a Labour MP although it was Clayton Cosgrove so care should be used in applying that description to him. Last election at the Rangiora booths National and Act secured 56% of the party vote and Labour and the Greens only 31% of the party vote.

So what could be worse than having to see a bunch of solar panels quietly soaking up the sun and providing clean green power?

How about environmental devastation, baking temperatures in summer and super storms all caused by too much CO2 in the atmosphere.

If ever there was a project that should have been fast tracked it is this one.

And the local Council should rubber stamp it. After all the Resource Management Act still requires decision makers to have particular regard to the effects of climate change.

And to those extolling the virtues of nuclear can I suggest to them this Juice media video which neatly explains why nuclear power is no panacea. Short version, it is too expensive, too dangerous and will take too long to construct.

And over in the US of A Donald Trump is doing something that it seems the residents of North Canterbury would approve of, and that is using the might of his office to derail the roll out of renewable energy.

From Oliver Milman at the Guardian:

In the first two weeks of his return as president, Trump has, like his first term, issued orders to open up more American land and waters for fossil fuel extraction and started the process to yank the US from the Paris climate agreement. “We will drill, baby drill,” said Trump, who has promised to cut energy and electricity prices in half within 18 months.

But Trump has this time also launched a blitzkrieg against renewable energy, with his department of interior temporarily suspending all clean energy development – but tellingly not oil and gas – on federal land.

Meanwhile an “energy emergency” declared by Trump mentions the need to bolster “crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal” but not solar, wind or other clean energy technologies. Trump has said he would like to see “good clean coal”, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, meet the rising electricity demand from AI generation.

About Solar power Trump said this:

You know what people also don’t like, those massive solar fields built over land that cover 10 miles by 10 miles … I mean they are ridiculous, the whole thing.”

There is a rest home in America that needs to go and rescue one of its elderly residents who struggles with his comprehension. He is currently living in the White House.

The powers that be have managed to persuade some ordinary people there is something wrong with solar. Which is a real shame. Because if we are going to get ourselves out of this climate change mess solar will have a significant part to play.

56 comments on “Why get upset with solar power? ”

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  1. tc 1
    9 February 2025 at 10:28 am

    Add it to the list micky as you say its a no-brainer.

    I recall a wind farm going from te uku to port Waikato proposed that went away after key got elected.

    We are so fkd over by the selling out of our power infrastructure it needs to return to public ownership.

  2. weka 2
    9 February 2025 at 10:31 am

    Here's what it looks like from this deep greenie who lives in similar country in a different part of the South Island.

    Large scale solar farms aren't going to solve climate change. The only way to make them anywhere near a useful response is if we also, now, decrease power demand, or at least shift to steady state. And to plant shitloads of trees, at the very least to mitigate the GHG emissions involved in the build. The developers could buy twice the land, reforest, protect the locals, and restore biodiversity. Instead, they're basically doing pseudo green BAU.

    We should also have grid tied solar mandated on every new build before we build solar farms.

    People who live in the country often do so because they don't want to be living in industrial landscape. That solar farm is 20 acres. That's the equivalent space of 80 or more households. I can tell you categorically that if they wanted to build that next to where I live and they hadn't come to my community about it early on, I'd be pissed.

    Solar farms do produce noise. For people sensitive to noise, that kind of industrial noise can destroy wellbeing. Some people live in the country to get away from industrial noise.

    I'm also not that keen to see further industrialisation of the landscape so that Aucklanders can wear t-shirts in winter. A cheap short handing, because there are a myriad of ways in which humans waste electricity, including moving it from long distances. There are many people in the SI who feel similarly and who aren't necessarily RW, but as we are learning it's not hard to shift people right and the left is still slow to understand this. It’s the three waters dynamic.

    There is a huge problem here of developers not working with communities. It's an old story, and it makes locals have to use up time and energy and resources to fight back. A sustainable model of development would work with communities, not dictate to them or use existing poor processed to enforce development.

    Stopping dams on the Waitaki and the Clutha was one such thing, and it's good we now see daming rivers as not acceptable ecologically. But what should be happening on that 20 acres is mass reforestation.

    There probably is a place for large scale solar farms. But just plonking them wherever is a form of terra nullius colonisation that perpetuates the climate crisis instead of taking real action.

    • Shanreagh 2.1
      9 February 2025 at 12:25 pm

      Hear, hear Weka.

      I totally agree.

      Surely we can be sensible in the placement of what are, in effect, an industrial building. Mind you it was only after court cases that the placement of wind farm turbines was semi regualted. In our haste to applaud new forms of energy we should not let go of the need to place these sensitvely. Cloeseness to where fellow humans live, work should automatically mean care.

      I'm also against the wholesale planting of pines on land that is suitable for better, or at least a variety, of land uses. This is part of the ETS.

      Also the felling of trees that were actually planted for soil conservation purposes back in the day. These were mainly part of large areas of land sold under the asset sales regime. The incoming buyers have no wish to manage these sensitively and believe that having been sold the crops they should be able to harvest the crops, and to hxxx with the consequences.

    • mpledger 2.2
      9 February 2025 at 3:12 pm

      What noise will there be on a solar farm?

      We have solar panels on our roof and there is no noise at all.

      They want the solar farm near people (or industry) as people (or industry) use electricity. If you place any generation far away then you get line losses.

      You can run sheep on the grass and you can plant trees around the outside so that you can't see the panels (once the trees grow).

    • mickysavage 2.3
      9 February 2025 at 8:26 pm

      Hi Weka I agree about the need to reduce power demand and consumption and solar panels will not solve the problem but …

      They are part of the solution. We need to make our power, future needs as well as current draw, totally renewable.

      And I prefer that we treat solar farms differently to dairy and coal mines.

      Build them. Let them be icons. If they piss locals off then tell them that this is what is happening under climate change.

      And I agree that pine plantations are not part of the solution. Plant native forests instead.

      And just to be clear I would personally support a big as wind turbine on Lion Rock at Piha. We need to become sustainable as soon as possible.

      • gsays 2.3.1
        10 February 2025 at 7:06 am

        With the greatest respect, that reminds me of Luxon's position on CC.

        He reckons our climate targets are not on the table while Jones is encouraging mining and calling bans woke while Seymour wants to pull out of the Paris Accords.

        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/500343/coalition-of-climate-chaos-where-national-act-and-nz-first-differ-on-emissions

        https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/david-seymour-floats-pulling-out-of-paris-agreement-after-2026-election/KYMLYYQAUBCFBACWJVEDTMMVPU/

        From The Lorax “I went right on biggering . . . selling more Thneeds. And I biggered my money, which everyone needs.”

      • Populuxe 2.3.2
        10 February 2025 at 11:23 am

        One of the interesting things about NZ is it has been far quicker at adopting private home solar over big centralised solar farms, which is probably something that should be made compulsory in new builds. Why build big solar farms when you have all that free roof space in our towns and cities.

        That said, combining agriculture and solar farms is so well established as a concept these days that it has a name – agrivoltaics.

        I think some people need to let go of the idea that we're ever going to willingly give up energy-intensive technologies. Not going to happen.

        • KJT 2.3.2.1
          10 February 2025 at 3:57 pm

          Individual small solar panels, are a more expensive and inefficient solution than large solar and wind farms. There are always economies of scale. (Even coal/gas generation powering a large number of electric cars, is more energy efficient than individual combustion engine cars). It has the advantage of masking the costs, because individual home owners, and sometimes, subsidies pay. There are some advantages of redundancy if the grid is smart enough.

          It is a pity that the pumped storage "battery" was canned as it solves some of the intermittant supply problems.

      • weka 2.3.3
        10 February 2025 at 12:18 pm

        we're in agreement about much micky. But I am curious how you see this playing out? Because what I see is NZ builds BAU industrial windfarms and solar farms without much regard for the climate and ecological crises.

        Which does a few things: it buys us some time, it shifts us closer to being fully renewable (in power generation but not in infrastructure construction and maintenance), and it helps with adaptation so that immediate generations have more stability and security for a while.

        But, it also allows us to keep growing, population and economy. We continue to waste large amounts of power we generate, and we continue to use the power on stupid shit that is destroying the planet (any number of examples but industrial export milk powder, or running city building lights all night, or heated towel rails ffs, on and on).

        No-one is thinking cradle to grave, nor the true costs of manufacture and disposal.

        Where I completely disagree with you is this,

        Build them. Let them be icons. If they piss locals off then tell them that this is what is happening under climate change.

        This is how we lose. It's the central tenet of both three waters and co-governance and why we have a RW government.

        There is no such thing as sustainability, nor solutions to the climate and ecology crisis, without bringing people along. Not only is your position antithetical to collective wellbeing, it also fails in green terms. There is no green without attending to the needs of humans. That's real politik.

        • lprent 2.3.3.1
          10 February 2025 at 2:02 pm

          Umm. I don't think that you really realise the extent of the electricity dependency in the SI at present.

          It has a unsustainable electricity monoculture in a variable climate.

          Having more varied power sources in the South Island would reduce the costs of dry years to the whole of NZ grid, and amongst other things would limit North Island businesses folding from high dry-year high power prices as they did last year.

          Have a close look at Figure 1 in last years paper Examining the purpose and future role of our HVDC link in particular the 2017-18 dry year. I haven't seen the 2023-4 year, but I'd expect that there was a massive NI->SI spike in that dry-year as well.

          Figure 1 shows energy transfer between the islands, both in the north and south direction more recently between 2017 and 2021. As shown, 2017-18 was a dry year where southward power transfer accounted for more than half the electricity transferred over the link.


          My italics below

          Helps manage dry hydrological years

          Although originally built to send lower cost electricity from hydro-electric power stations in the South Island to the North, during the first ten years of the link’s operation the benefit of sending power south was also identified. Changes were made to the AC (alternating current) to DC convertors, which convert electricity from AC to DC and vice-versa, at Benmore and Haywards in 1976 to enable this southwards transfer capability.

          As a result, the link can transmit power in both directions – south to north and north to south. Today north to south transfer happens regularly across a typical week, due to the natural variations in output from the increasing amount of North Island wind generation being “firmed” or balanced by changes to the amount of South Island hydro generation sent north. North to south transfer occurs most frequently at night when North Island wind generation is strong. Critically the link allows thermal generation in the North Island to supply South Island demand in a ‘dry hydrological year’ – when South Island hydro lake levels are low – to avoid rolling blackouts. This was the case in 1992 and 2001 and again in 2008.

          Most of the power that currently goes north goes to the Wellington district, and not much further.

          Alternatively we could shut down the HVDC lines over the Cook Strait and let prices rise and fall intra-island rather than having a NZ wide market. The extensive upgrade costs coming up for the inter-island interconnector start arising in the 2030s.

          Frankly, shutting down the SI-NI transfers main effect would be to accelerate the generation of wind power in Wellington region and in the Taranaki bright. A way cheaper option than the cost of maintaining the inter-island interconnect and far more sustainable. It is somewhat more risky because it means that the NI industries would be relying on geothermal, currently mostly in the unstable volcanic plateau.

          Of course that would mean that the SI would have to start to heavily invest in making their electricity generation sustainable, in particular their growing industrial and residential areas in Canterbury. Probably with solar and wind.

          Which is why you're getting solar close to maintainers and urban areas. Dry year blackouts aren't a North Island problem – they are a South Island issue.

          • Populuxe 2.3.3.1.1
            10 February 2025 at 3:29 pm

            Yep, and with climate change it may be increasingly difficult to keep the hydro lakes full, not that it's particularly easy now in a drought.
            Also south of Nelson the winters get much colder and houses are increasingly dependent on electrical heating as restrictions tighten on woodburners, at a time of year where solar isn't efficient and wind power is more optimal, so diversity is important.
            And then there's the problem of the Queenstown region expanding faster than infrastructure can keep up with.

    • Bearded Git 2.4
      10 February 2025 at 8:32 am

      Disagree Weka. I'm in Spain at the moment, the most successful economy in Europe. They have mass solar panel sites all over the place…….much less intrusive than visually intrusive and noisy wind towers….and now cheaper than wind.

      As can be seen in Texas, California, Spain and Australia, solar, preferably with grid scale battery storage attached (now also getting much cheaper) is the future.

      I do agree that there are some places where the landscape effects may preclude solar. But where on earth did you get the idea that solar makes noise? And haven't you seen the sheep grazing around the solar panels, so the land is still productive.

      • weka 2.4.1
        10 February 2025 at 11:44 am

        none of that addresses my core points about biodiversity and regenerative sustainability. Nor the climate crisis.

        Sheep farms aren't bastions of sustainability either. Most sheep farming in NZ degrades land and ecosystems.

        Solar farm noise is an easy google. I'd encourage you to look at the sources that aren't polarised, and consider it from the pov of people sensitive to noise. This doesn't mean no solar farms ever, it means not just imposing more industrial estate in rural areas vis dismissal of local concerns. Take into account existing noise.

    • lprent 2.5
      10 February 2025 at 1:43 pm

      I'm always amused by the sheer lack of understanding of our electricity grid, as expressed in slogans.

      I'm also not that keen to see further industrialisation of the landscape so that Aucklanders can wear t-shirts in winter. A cheap short handing, because there are a myriad of ways in which humans waste electricity, including moving it from long distances.

      It is worth looking at the HVDC transfer data on a weekly basis to get an idea of the actual pattern (ie not the one in idiotic slogans). If only to get some sense of how the electricity over the Cook strait goes both ways and does that on a hourly basis. At this time of the year it is slightly leaning to having a SI->NI.

      In winter, it isn't abnormal to have weeks of electrical flow from the NI->SI when Antarctica opens up. That is to provide electricity to the upper South Island mostly for heating. These winter transmission from the NI->SI happens frequently when the there are dry hydro years, and transfer mostly geo-thermal power from the central North Island to the South Island, most to stop 'mainlanders' from freezing or shutting down businesses from high power prices.

      The electricity going north over the HVDC connections over the strait is for the limited industrial areas remaining in the Hutt, Wellington CBD, and residential. In other words, so people in Wellington can work in tee-shirts in winter. Except of course they don't – the weather sucks and they wear jerseys and have an extensive dump partially made up of discarded umbrellas.

      It is worth reading something like the 2023 transmission planning report to get an idea of the regional generation and distribution.

      As the 2023 report says about Wellington region.

      As generation capacity in the region is much lower than local load, power is normally imported, either via the HVDC link (from the South Island) or from the Central North Island.

      Wellington is full of moving (often profusely hot) air, but takes little advantage of it. Instead they suck power from elsewhere. West Wind is their largest generating system, and they should keep stacking wind generation in because it works in that area.

      Auckland gets no effective electricity from the South Island. The transmission losses within the North Island would make that impossible. 95% of the power to Auckland and Northland comes from the other side of the Bombays. Essentially the dams on the Waikato, geothermal from the volcanic plateau, and various other generation mostly within about 400km south of the Bombay Hills.

      Most of the electricity goes to industrial and business usage. This gets pretty obvious when you look at the Auckland grid with the existing and future hotspots being around industrial areas like .

      For the record, I live in tee-shirts almost all of the time in Auckland. That isn't because of South Island power, it is because of the climate which is somewhat warmer than the South Island. Much of my heating in winter comes from the hot air from the server running this site, along with the computers that I and my partner work on. The Nobo panel heater gets about 2-3 weeks of work all year.

      Our increased winter power usage entirely comes from occasionally using a clothes drier for our winter tee-shirts and hoodies when they won't dry on a rack. I have exactly one jersey. I use it when I go to the frigid areas of NZ – like Rotorua in winter, or to Southland in summer.

      • weka 2.5.1
        10 February 2025 at 10:14 pm

        that'll teach me to do cheap shots. It's from a tv news piece from quite some time ago where they interviewed some Aucklanders wearing tshirts in winter and complaining about how cold it was. It's funny really, especially to someone who lived a few years in student flats in Dunedin where there was one heater in the house and everyone wore three jerseys.

        My point stands. NZ wastes a lot of power. That is part of why we are struggling to get to 100% renewables.

  3. Graeme 3
    9 February 2025 at 10:42 am

    Had a quick look at Upper Sefton Road on Google Maps, it looks like a typical North Canterbury rural road with a mix of rural lifestyle, some larger agricultural operations and a bit of quite heavy industrial with a fibreboard plant https://www.customwood.co.nz/ just out of Rangiora.

    Looks like one of the larger blocks has found solar farming has more going for it than grazing or going round and round on the tractor. On that country it wouldn't be a hard decision to make. There's most likely a planning constraint on subdivision for lifestyle blocks, or lack of market for the lifestyle blocks in the picture as well.

  4. Champagne Socialist 4
    9 February 2025 at 11:58 am

    Don't worry – we are no longer a country that says 'no' to economic projects especially if it's FDI from Oz!

  5. Mike the Lefty 5
    9 February 2025 at 12:00 pm

    I suppose building lifestyle block houses for the rich would be OK then?

    Sounds a bit NIMBY to me, probably stirred up by the local National MP.

    Besides, you can still graze animals on land with solar panels if they are installed with this in mind.

    The argument that solar energy will never be enough is a red herring. NO energy source on its own will ever be enough to solve all the energy needs. Even Mr Drill Baby Drill and Mr Pork Barrel Jones know deep down that oil reserves are finite and that most of the readily accessible reserves are already depleted.

    I would like it better if it was a NZ owned consortium.

    • weka 5.1
      9 February 2025 at 12:04 pm

      Lifestyle blocks increase biodiversity. Is this solar farm going to do that?

      • Shanreagh 5.1.1
        9 February 2025 at 12:35 pm

        Yes.

        I also saw years ago studies showing that production was higher because of the more intensive use on life style blocks.

        I'd hate to think that references to life style blocks etc were being driven by the politics of envy.

        I am not sure about noise but the noise from wind farms was massively underestimated when they first came in, ths allowing turbines to be palced much closer tan wwas reasonable. There is also the point about unease caused by constantly seeing things out of the corner of one's eye (mentioned in several of the cases about wind farms in the Central-East North Island and I think the ones along the coast south of Wellington City), reflections etc. The effects on the human psyche should come before wholesale industrial installations not matter how worthy they seem at first glance.

        • Mac1 5.1.1.1
          9 February 2025 at 5:40 pm

          I found this from the Ministry of the Environment in 2022.

          "How much highly productive land has been lost to subdivision?

          In the last 20 years, over 35,000 hectares of highly productive land has been lost to urban or rural residential development. The carve-up of land for lifestyle blocks poses an even greater risk because it consumes even larger areas of highly productive land. Lifestyle blocks under 8 hectares in size now occupy more than 170,000 hectares of land considered to be highly productive. The relatively small size of lifestyle blocks often makes it difficult to use them for a viable productive use."

          https://environment.govt.nz/assets/publications/national-policy-statement-highly-productive-land-infosheet-v2.pdf

          Not much about politics of envy there, but a concern about loss of highly productive land which is an issue as market garden land becomes shopping malls and expensive housing estates.

          170,000 hectares. 1.2% of all farmland. Since 2007 total farmland has decreased from 14.7 million hectares to 13.2 million hectares.

          170,000 hectares in life style blocks out of the just under 15% of NZ's land area classes as HPL, highly productive land, which is just under 39,500 sq kms or 3,950,000 ha. So, 4.5% of our best land is life style block.

          We do need to be careful here, as we sequester our most productive land.

          • weka 5.1.1.1.1
            9 February 2025 at 8:58 pm

            again, lifestyle blocks increase biodiversity. Industrial farming in particular decreases it. There is no economy without nature.

            • joe90 5.1.1.1.1.1
              9 February 2025 at 9:38 pm

              Because we can import food, right.

              https://figure.nz/chart/tErPPeXnWw9UlYtS-wNQdBmZ4uwy3wtCK

              • weka …
                10 February 2025 at 11:24 am

                not sure what your point is. NZ is a net exporter of food afaik. How much we import and export is determined by capitalism, nothing to do with feeding New Zealanders.

                • joe90 …
                  10 February 2025 at 12:53 pm

                  In 2013 35 percent of Auckland's versatile land was used as lifestyle blocks so lotsa biodiversity there, I guess. But at the cost of forcing producers further and further from their markets?

                  • weka …
                    10 February 2025 at 1:24 pm

                    That critique depends on the assumptions that we are better off with industrial agriculture using land than small growers, and that lifestyle blocks don't produce food.

                    It also ignores the fact that everywhere in NZ we build suburbs on fertile land.

                    From the RNZ piece,

                    The government's state of the environment report shows fertile land for food production is under threat as more lifestyle blocks are developed on the fringes of urban areas.

                    Really? Or is the concern more that lifestyle blocks aren't part of the export market?

                    Thanks for linking to my local food posts. Somewhere in there I will have talked about urban farming. It's not like lifestyle blocks on the outskirts of cities and new suburbs can't grow food. If we are so concerned about food production, why aren't we creating urban farms, and selling to locals? Because what it's really about is the need for export dollars so we can fund our iphones and jet skis.

                    It's not like industrial ag sells locally. Transport costs in NZ, including food, are a big part of our GHG problem.

                    • joe90 …
                      11 February 2025 at 1:25 pm

                      Really? Or is the concern more that lifestyle blocks aren't part of the export market?

                      Nope. It's about gobbling up the productive, north facing and mostly frost-free loams that feed our metropolises.

                      why aren't we creating urban farms, and selling to locals

                      Where?

                      /

                    • weka []
                      11 February 2025 at 3:25 pm

                      so no to lifestyle blocks on fertile land, but yes to suburbs being build on fertile land?

                      “why aren’t we creating urban farms, and selling to locals”
                      Where?

                      Every urban place in NZ.

            • Bearded Git 5.1.1.1.1.2
              10 February 2025 at 8:39 am

              Lifestyle blocks with their inevitable mansions and numerous outbuildings, vehicles, access roads etc are more intrusive in the landscape than solar farms.

              • weka …
                10 February 2025 at 11:32 am

                I didn't particularly focus on visuals in my critique above at 2., if that's what you means by intrusive. But can you give some examples? It's hard to imagine them being more visually intrusive than panels and infrastructure taking up the same space that 80 households would.

                I can see a place for large scale solar, where is it integrated into the landscape and with regards for biodiversity and sustainability (and local needs). But that's not what is happening. What we are getting is the BAU capitalist development that won't solve climate change.

      • Populuxe 5.1.2
        10 February 2025 at 11:32 am

        Europe is big on agrivoltaics. You grow crops and graze livestock between the panel arrays. Livestock can shelter under them in the sort of hot, dry climate that favours solar. Or you can construct them over water reservoirs to reduce evaporation.
        I'd like to see some evidence that lifestyle blocks increase diversity when most of them are usually niche monocultures like lavender, peonies or ostriches even when the land is being productive. Mostly they just seem to be places to stick a McMansion and complain about the manure smells.

        • weka 5.1.2.1
          10 February 2025 at 11:34 am

          how many people do you know that live on lifestyle blocks? This mcmansion theme seems to be a meme rather than a reality.

          The agrivolatics sounds interesting, thanks, I'll take a look. It's what I was pointing to above.

  6. Psycho Milt 6
    9 February 2025 at 5:18 pm

    I live in Palmerston North, so it's wind farms rather than solar panels that get the NIMBY treatment here. People living on the hills whose houses, sheds and deforestation are visible from tens of kilometers away dispute every wind farm on the basis of "visual pollution." Unless everyone develops an enthusiasm for using less electricity, we need something other than additional coal or gas-fired power stations.

    • mickysavage 6.1
      9 February 2025 at 8:28 pm

      +1

    • gsays 6.2
      10 February 2025 at 6:54 am

      That's one side of the hill, on the other, the Ballance Valley, its another story.

      I have a buddy who lives off grid in a log cabin in a pocket of native bush. The closest turbine to his dwelling is 800 metres away. As you know, the prevailing wind is the westerly/nor wester. The noise is like the roar of the ocean when its a relatively still day.

      Another mate, who loves a dust-up, lives on South Range road, top of the Pahiatua Track. He fought for years when he was told by The Man that he had to move. Long story short, Meridian paid him way over market value for his whare. He shifted out for a few years and is now back in his house which he got back for nothing.

      Both these folks live off grid and, ironically, were using a 400 watt marine turbine that sounded like a siren when running.

    • Populuxe 6.3
      10 February 2025 at 11:25 am

      Having had occasion to pass through PN airport I thought they looked rather beautiful.

    • weka 6.4
      10 February 2025 at 11:37 am

      I don't have much sympathy for the people that are upset by nimbys. People have genuine concerns about industrial estate in rural places, and instead of working with the people that live in those places and working through the issues, various corps try and impose it and then everyone wonders why there is so much push back.

      Yes, there are selfish people not thinking about the bigger picture. That's across the board. What I'm seeing in this thread is a lot of lw support for something that isn't actually sustainable and isn't actually going to solve the climate crisis. How is that any different from nimbys with their own agenda? I guess it makes people feel more secure in power for their lifetimes, but dam the subsequent generations and nature.

      • Psycho Milt 6.4.1
        10 February 2025 at 2:03 pm

        I think there's a basic "turkeys don't vote for Christmas" problem with trying to get society to use less electricity, in that no govt can have a policy of lowering people's standard of living and expect to get re-elected. Until we find a way to overcome that, we need to develop electricity generation that doesn't rely on coal, or people will rely on coal. I believe it's a matter of "which is the least worst of the shit approaches that are currently achievable?"

        • weka 6.4.1.1
          10 February 2025 at 10:00 pm

          thanks for being one of the few people that got what I was talking about. I agree about the real politik. Here's the problem though, the only person in this conversation that has to worry about that is micky. No-one else is a politician who has to think about being elected.

          I'd have less of a problem if this thread was full of people 1) acknowledging the reality of the climate crisis and b) saying we have to do this least shitty option right now for pragmatics, but what we really need to be doing is planning around severe disruption to society including the global economy, and raising awareness of this because the politicians can't. And while we're there, let's at least make the solar farms integrate into the landscape and take ecology and locals into account.

          Hell, I'd even settled for 'it's not nearly enough, but it's heading in the right direction' arguments (having made plenty of those myself).

          Instead we have a lot of people basically in denial about what the climate crisis is, and acting as if solar farms and green BAU are going to save the day. Does anyone run these things through future scenarios? I guess not.

          • Psycho Milt 6.4.1.1.1
            11 February 2025 at 8:48 am

            I don't think they do. I've seen right-wingers saying climate change won't be particularly bad for NZ because we're a long way south, as though people where it will be bad couldn't possibly imagine that NZ might be expected to take them in, and would somehow continue buying our products with their no-longer-existing money.

  7. Mac1 7
    9 February 2025 at 5:59 pm

    I wrote this in 2012 about Apiti wind farm near PN.

    "Long light lingers in from the west
    Illumining green hills in clear glow-
    Blades of countless turbines spin above
    In the unfelt wind; a Calvary
    Of crosses against the sky,
    Three point stars for crossbars, rotating;
    A modern Golgotha
    Of white sky-bound bones."

    I found a strange beauty in the way that wind farm sat in the landscape.

  8. Jenny 8
    10 February 2025 at 9:31 am

    “But Trump has this time also launched a blitzkrieg against renewable energy, with his department of interior temporarily suspending all clean energy development – but tellingly not oil and gas – on federal land.” Mickysavage

    'The Psychopaths Have Taken Over the Asylum'

    In the 1980s a band called Fun Boy Three wrote and performed a song, 'The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum'

    See a clinic full of cynics
    Who want to twist the peoples' wrist
    They're watching every move we make
    We're all included on the list…

    …..I've seen the faces of starvation
    But I just can not see the point
    'Cause there's so much food here today
    That no one wants to take away.

    If Fun Boy Three were to get back together and perform that song today, they would have to change the main refrain to, 'The Psychopaths Have Taken Over the Asylum'

  9. Phillip ure 9
    10 February 2025 at 12:24 pm

    I think the solutions come back to the individual to do something about it..

    I have a solar set-up in the vintage caravan in which I live/beetle around new Zealand. ..( it's called being slightly upmarket homeless..heh..!)

    I have not paid a power bill in over 8 years…

    Rechargable lights/speakers etc. complete the set up…

    I just can't understand why everyone doesn't solar-up…

    It's free power..!.. people…!

    Don't look to the state to do it..do it yrslf..!

  10. Bruce 10
    10 February 2025 at 12:24 pm

    Like house sized solar panels these house sized wind turbines, would solve so many issues. No need for distribution, quiet, not unsightly?. I think between the two a house could be self sufficient.

  11. Ad 11
    10 February 2025 at 3:34 pm

    Great to see the backboned cockies of Canterbury figure out what the RMA was for when they successfully campaigned to eradicate it.

    In the real world as opposed to the deep Green loonies and hard right farmers, this is the reality of what is happening to grid-scale solar in New Zealand:

    • 1.6mw solar farm in Wairau Valley, Marlborough. Nope, no complaints.
    • 2.1mw solar farm in Kapuni, South Taranaki. Still no complaints.
    • 56gw solar farm in Kaitaia, run with sheep
    • 28gw solar farm in Ruawai, south of Whangarei. Just in case a Northland pylon falls down again.
      • 400mw solar farm on the Napier-Taupo highway, south of Taupo. This displaced a large dairy farm.
    • the Te Kowhai solar farm right next to Christchurch Airport, preparing for full self-generation. Also preparing for electric domestic aircraft.

    And more large ones deep into planning, usually awaiting only finance to build: Helensville, Bunnythorpe near Palmerston North, Carterton, Edgecumbe, Greytown, Heldon in the Mckenzie district, Hinuera, Leeston, Maniototo, Marton, Opunake, Maungatoroto, Swannanoa in Canterbury, The Point in the Mackenzie District, Ohinewai in the Waikato, and the biggie in Kuratau in the Waikato.

    After the abysmal failure of SolarZero to form a proper distributed domestic rooftop system, it is grid-scale investments that New Zealand needs.

    Anyone mithering here about whether grid solar should happen or not is like complaining about the advent of the telephone.

    Those with courage and capital who believe in this country could consider putting their money into Infratil, Lodestone, Aurora Capital and other locals with exposure to the kind of electricity generation they want to see.

    • weka 11.1
      10 February 2025 at 10:03 pm

      All of that would be wonderful if we were still hoping to stay below 1.5C. You obviously have a lot of knowledge in the industrial side of things, but your inability to understand what the climate crisis is part of the problem. The loonie greens have a foot in both worlds, and what desperately needs to happen is for more people in your part of society to face the climate crisis head on.

      I also find it surprising that someone of your experience can't make the basic leap to understand that the more solar farms that get built, the more demand for power will increase. Maybe we get to have our power generation fully renewable, that would be great. Then what?