opposition to wind farm grows

[harm_less]

.....
Frankly, I'd rather see wind farms and wave generators all over the place than see one more fossil fueled power station built. But before we get there maybe solar panels on every roof would be less aesthetically irritating than turbines in the back garden?

Very few locations have sufficient and regular enough wind run to make small scale wind turbines viable. They are also very noisy withe the smaller (<10kW) horizontal axis ones similar to a Cessna at take off. Also NZ wind conditions are notoriously gusty which is very destructive for an already high maintenance item.

The idea of mandating PV on all new builds has a lot of merit and for buildings that are mostly used during the day such as business premises and schools it's an absolute no-brainer as the generation can be largely self consumed without need for (non-viable) batteries and daytime electricity costs can be significantly offset by self-generation.

Currently PV is the cheapest electricity generation available and total cost is actually less than the fuel costs of fossil fuel plants. Add to that NZ's unique situation of having huge hydro capacity which are essentially batteries with generation capacity that can be saved for the periods when renewables such as wind or solar are off line. What we really need though is an electricity supply industry that isn't corrupted by the actions of the big incumbent genretailers.