Search

Flow batteries (FBs) are characterized by relatively high round trip efficiencies and benefit from high scalability. The storable energy and the power of charging and discharging the battery can be increased by increasing the size of the electrolyte storage tanks and the electrodes. Charge and discharge cycles covering many hours may be designed with flow batteries. This makes flow batteries a better choice than lithium‐ion batteries for large‐scale energy storage systems, particularly for non‐dispatchable renewable energy systems such as wind and solar, where the energy generated is highly variable and requires effective energy storage solutions. However, flow batteries also have some disadvantages, including a higher cost per unit of energy stored compared with other batteries, as well as the use of materials that in some cases are toxic, expensive, or scarce. Additionally, flow batteries cannot solve the energy storage issues over long times of a grid only supplied by non‐dispatchable electricity such as wind or solar, namely intermittency and summer to winter variability of solar, or low wind days of wind. Despite these limitations, the potential benefits of flow batteries in terms of their scalability and long cycle life, and cost‐effectiveness in case their design could be improved, making them one of the key contributors progressing towards net zero. Specifically in New Zealand, in the progress toward net‐zero the total energy supply (TES) cannot be covered by only expanding wind energy production and pumped hydro energy storage (PHES). Solar photovoltaic and likely nuclear energy supply will have to be introduced. Not all of the TES will be electrified, part of the TES will need coverage by green hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen energy storage (HES) will have to grow much more than PHES, energy storage by FBs as well as lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) will also have to be included, given their complementarity to the other energy storage systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) applies to the production of energy from wind in waters under national jurisdiction, with a focus on the nascent regulatory frameworks for offshore wind in Australia and New Zealand. It explores the particular characteristics of offshore wind—which raise different regulatory issues than traditional offshore activities such as fishing and oil and gas exploitation—and explores how key provisions of UNCLOS will affect the way in which coastal states regulate offshore wind in their waters. Against this backdrop, it considers how the international law framework might apply in the specific context of Australia and New Zealand, where domestic legal frameworks are currently being established to regulate vast and valuable offshore wind resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the feasibility of using wind power for power supply to coastal communities isolated from the main supply grid. The case study is Stewart Island, where the cost of electricity provided by a central diesel power station is higher than the grid network in New Zealand. The Princeton Ocean Model (POM) conducted by MetOcean Solutions Limited (MSL) is used to find Foveaux as an optimized site for generating wind power. Global Wind Atlas is used to plot the wind rose of current wind patterns in New Zealand. In the next step, wind speed data from each site are imported from the NASA database to WRPLOT view software and Homer Pro to find wind frequency distribution and output power in the area. The maximum annual power can be seen in WSW (32,299 kW hours/year), SW (20,111 kW hours/year) and W (15,622 kW hour/year) directions, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floating platforms are complex structures used in deep water and high wind speeds. However, a methodology should be defined to have a stable offshore structure and not fail dynamically in severe environmental conditions. This paper aims to provide a method for estimating failure load or ultimate load on the anchors of floating systems in integrating wind and tidal turbines in New Zealand. Using either wind or tidal turbines in areas with harsh water currents is not cost-effective. Also, tidal energy, as a predictable source of energy, can be an alternative for wind energy when cut-in speed is not enough to generate wind power. The most expensive component after the turbine is the foundation. Using the same foundation for wind and tidal turbines may reduce the cost of electricity. Different environment scenarios as load cases have been set up to test the proposed system's performance, capacity and efficiency. Available tidal records from the national institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) have been used to find the region suitable for offshore energy generation and to conduct simulation model runs. Based on the scenarios, Terawhiti in Cook Strait with 110 m water height was found as the optimized site. It can be seen that the proposed floating hybrid system is stable in the presence of severe environmental conditions of wind and wave loadings in Cook Strait and gives a procedure for sizing suction caisson anchors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New Zealand Government has a goal of a 100% renewable electricity system by 2035. Wind generation is expected to play a major role in achieving this target. However, there is limited public data on current and potential wind generation. We use the Renewables.ninja model to simulate wind output at 44 wind farm sites in New Zealand over a 20-year period. We make our data publicly available and use them to analyse New Zealand's wind resources. We find the long-run average capacity factors over all current and potential sites is 40%. It is lowest in autumn (around 35%) and highest in spring (around 45%). Output is similar across all demand percentiles with little correlation between wind output and demand. A small positive correlation exists between wind output and daily inflows into hydro storage dams. A more significant positive correlation exists between wind output and inflows in the period leading up to winter (when lake levels are typically lowest), implying that wind cannot help energy shortfall during dry years. Finally, we explore how much wind capacity must be installed to give a 100% renewable electricity system, and the trade-offs between energy storage and spilling wind for achieving this target. • First open simulation of wind power in New Zealand's electricity market. • The current and proposed future wind fleets have long-run capacity factors of 40 ± 2%. • On average, wind provides an equal contribution at times of high and low demand. • Wind has a positive correlation with hydro inflows, implying no help against dry years. • 100% renewable electricity is viable with the proposed wind farms and 7-day storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MAPM (Mapping Air Pollution eMissions) is a project whose goal is to develop a method to infer particulate matter (PM) emissions maps from in situ PM concentration measurements. In support of MAPM, a winter field campaign was conducted in New Zealand in 2019 (June to September) to obtain the measurements required to test and validate the MAPM methodology. Two different types of instruments measuring PM were deployed: ES-642 remote dust monitors (17 instruments) and Outdoor Dust Information Nodes (ODINs; 50 instruments). The measurement campaign was bracketed by two intercomparisons where all instruments were co-located, with a permanently installed Tapered Element Oscillating Membrane (TEOM) instrument, to determine any instrument biases. Changes in biases between the pre-and post-campaign intercomparisons were used to determine instrument drift over the campaign period. Once deployed, each ES-642 was co-located with an ODIN. In addition to the PM measurements, meteorological variables (temperature, pressure, wind speed and wind direction) were measured at three automatic weather station (AWS) sites established as part of the campaign, with additional data being sourced from 27 further AWSs operated by other agencies. Vertical profile measurements were made in two intensive radiosonde subcampaigns and were supplemented with measurements made with a mini micropulse lidar and ceilometer. Here we present the data collected during the campaign and discuss the correction of the measurements made by various PM instruments. We find that for while for the ODINs a correction based on environmental conditions is beneficial, this results in over-fitting and increased uncertainties when applied to the measurements obtained using the more sophisticated ES-642s. We also compare PM2.5 and PM10 measured by ODINs which, in some cases, allows us to identify PM from natural and anthropogenic sources. The PM data collected during the campaign are publicly available from https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4023402 (Dale et al., 2020b), the data from other instruments are available from https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4021685 (Dale et al., 2020a). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classification of wind energy resources can provide reference for assessing optimal turbine locations. The traditional wind energy classification scheme is usually a single consideration of partial wind energy factors. This study aims to construct a micro-scale classification scheme of wind energy resource that incorporates a comprehensive consideration of wind energy factors, environment risk factor and cost factors. The wind energy classification of the New Zealand waters is presented as a case study by calculating the expectation values of wind energy. Results show that the expectation values of wind energy in most of the New Zealand are above 0.6 (belongs to rich area). Only a small range coast area is relatively low in expectation values of wind energy, but still above 0.5 (belongs to subrich area). The North Cape waters, the East Cape waters, the South Taranaki Bight and its northwest waters are relative large center of expectation values of wind energy. Comparing with the traditional wind energy classification schemes, our scheme can exhibit the regional difference of wind energy classification more obviously. However, the weight coefficient of the factors considered in this study is not fixed. Reasonably adjusting, adding or deleting the weight coefficients of the related factors according to different focus, the wind energy classification scheme proposed by this study can be widely used to provide scientific reference for the site selection of wind energy development under different actual demands. • A new wind energy classification scheme is proposed. • Our scheme comprehensively considered the wind energy, environment and cost factors. • This scheme can better show the regional differences of wind energy classification than the traditional schemes. • This scheme can be widely used to the site selection of wind energy development under different actual demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers news brief. Challenging efforts of New Zealand government to implement ban on sale of bones, eggs and skeleton parts of the extinct bird species Moa. Plans of British government to create resevoirs of compressed air under the North Sea, as as to power the wind farms during winter when there is no wind. Enhanced levels of natural radioactivity at Lake Peipsi, Estonia.

This paper analyses the Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI) and Energy Return on Carbon Emissions (EROC) of current wind energy farms in New Zealand. The weighted average EROI for a New Zealand wind energy farm over a 20 year life span is 34.3, with the highest achieving 57.7, while the lowest is 6.5. These values are higher than wind energy farms in Europe and America, which average about 20, and higher than many other electricity generation methods reported in the literature with hydropower being the main exception. The above-average capacity factor of New Zealand wind energy farms is the primary reason for the higher EROI values. The average EROC value for New Zealand's existing wind energy farms is 477 GJ/t CO 2 -e, which is 56 times the EROC of a combined cycle natural gas power station. The substantial range of EROI values are chiefly driven by two factors: (1) wind speed profile for a given site and (2) the blade diameter of the turbine, where greater values are better. The main drawback of wind energy is variability causing reliability issues and needing hydro power as a renewable buffer to keep emissions low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reanalysis data are widely used for simulating renewable energy and in particular wind power generation. While MERRA-2 has been a de-facto standard in many studies for a long time, the newer ERA5-reanalysis recently gained importance. Here, both datasets were used to simulate wind power generation and evaluate their quality in terms of correlations and error measures compared to historical data of wind power generation. Due to their coarse resolution, reanalyses are known to fail to represent local climatic conditions adequately. Hence, mean bias correction was applied with two versions of the Global Wind Atlas (GWA) to the reanalysis data and the quality of the resulting simulations was assessed. Potential users of these datasets can also benefit from our analysis of the impact of spatial and temporal aggregation on indicators of simulation quality. We also assessed regions which differ significantly in terms of the prevailing climate, some of which are underrepresented in similar studies: the US, Brazil, South-Africa, and New Zealand. Our principal findings are threefold. (i) ERA5 outperforms MERRA-2 in terms of the assessed error measures. (ii) Bias-correction with GWA2 does not improve simulation quality substantially, while bias-correction with GWA3 is detrimental. (iii) Temporal aggregation increases correlations and reduces errors, while spatial aggregation does so consistently only when comparing very fine and very coarse granularities. • ERA5 outperforms MERRA-2 for wind power simulation. • GWA bias correction does not consistently reduce the error. • GWA2 can be used for bias correction, while GWA3 is not recommended. • Bias between observed and simulated wind power varies strongly depending on location. • Temporal aggregation increases simulation quality, spatial aggregation does not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Renewable electricity expansion highlights the need for a review of energy storage options. Wind power growth, in particular, is likely to require the support of dedicated fast-start reserve capacity. Moreover, in New Zealand, non-pumped hydroelectricity-based storage has only limited potential to meet seasonal variations of hydro inflows. This constraint has contributed to several ‘dry-year’ events over the last decade. This case study surveys New Zealand electricity sector experts as to the feasibility of meeting reserve capacity needs while reducing carbon emissions through the introduction of pumped hydro and utility-scale batteries by 2025. Most respondents project peak power demand to continue to increase, resulting in new-build centralised (∼150 MW) thermal reserve power sources. Pumped hydro is seen by most as prohibitively costly, but is almost universally viewed as technically capable of providing renewables support and peak power adequacy. Utility-scale batteries are seen as least cost-effective, with very high storage costs per kWh and most likely only to be used in NZ for very high-value applications where there is a strong technical advantage, such as the six-second instantaneous reserve. A price of carbon of around NZ$100/tCO2-e, however, was seen as making these technologies much more competitive, and climate change mitigation was seen as a strong driver of these storage options. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper explores the partnership between a community group and a geography department to assess the wind energy potential of the Blueskin Bay region in southern New Zealand. The partnership has provided opportunities for research and is of strategic importance. Year-long wind observations and numerical modelling have revealed that the hills surrounding Blueskin Bay show potential for wind energy generation. Despite challenges for both parties, the university-community partnership has allowed a successful research platform to be established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Microgeneration using roof-top wind turbines is at present not common in New Zealand. It is, however, being trialled by the electricity network company, Vector, in a range of urban locations. Limitations of size mean roof-top wind turbines may not satisfy the total energy requirement of New Zealand houses. Ensuring structural stability and complying with stringent noise standards in New Zealand are further issues. In addition, roof-top turbines may be inefficient in terms of net energy and carbon emissions, performance indicators that are fundamental for the adoption of this technology. This paper considers the feasibility of using roof-top wind turbines in urban houses in New Zealand and, using life cycle assessment, evaluates the net energy and carbon emissions associated with their use. The results indicate that the electricity-generating potential of centralised wind farms in New Zealand using large turbines is 11.3–7 times the generating potential of roof-top turbines mounted on urban houses. In spite of this the roof-top turbines that are currently being trialled, could have the potential to reduce the energy and carbon intensity of New Zealand electricity by 81% and 26%, respectively. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article examines closely the legislative and policy regime governing the generation of wind energy in New Zealand. New Zealand's wind energy industry has the highest growth rate worldwide. The country's wind energy development potential is considered to be significant. However, the development of wind farms in New Zealand is not without controversy. New Zealand is a country with magnificent landscapes, a unique flora and fauna, and a precious cultural heritage that might be endangered by uncontrolled wind energy development. Thus, it is the objective of this article to analyse whether and how the benefits and adverse effects of wind power generation can be balanced. The article will focus on the question of whether and how New Zealand law and policy can promote an ecologically compatible utilisation of wind energy, effectively encouraging wind farms and, at the same time, addressing their adverse environmental effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and appraises provisions in New Zealand law that promote the use of renewable sources of energy. For some time, the policy climate has been hostile to interventions in the marketplace but since a change in government in 1999, laws have put more emphasis on renewables. Measures include statutory strategies, a climate change programme, amendments to general environmental and land use legislation, and amendments to electricity legislation. These measures give only modest encouragement, but wind energy is growing rapidly nonetheless. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the commissioning of its latest wind farm, Te Apiti near Palmerston North, New Zealand has crowned a slew of recent projects and is fast cementing its reputation as a hot bed for new wind developments. David Appleyard reports. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article reports on Marsden Fund and Foundation of Research, Science and Technology's grants for a wind research project at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Canterprise, the commercial unit of the university, and Connell Wagner consulting engineers have signed an agreement over an advanced three-dimensional wind modeling system that can produce accurate predictions of whether a site is ideal for a wind farm. Canterprise chief executive officer John Chang describes the size of the licensing agreement and its value.

Reports on developments related to the New Zealand Branch of the Clean Air Society of Australia and New Zealand as of February 2005. Funding for the research program "Protecting New Zealand's Clean Air"; Rejection of wind power farm application; Technical meeting program.