BESS + Solar Farm + Blueberries = Energy Resilience in New Zealand

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Meridian Energy has announced the imminent commencement of the construction of the 130 MW Ruakākā Solar Farm south of Whangārei. This will be the company’s first NZ solar farm. Whangarei is the northernmost city in New Zealand, situated on the North Island. Majella and I stayed there a few years ago — beautiful place to visit, even Marsden Point, so long as you didn’t look at the at oil refinery. You can see a video of the BESS under construction here. The oil refinery is in the background.

“This project is special. Not just because it’s our first solar farm in New Zealand, but because it will add so much to the Northland region in terms of energy resilience, and we’ve seen in recent years how important that is,” Meridian Chief Executive Neal Barclay says. See CleanTechnica’s previous article on New Zealand’s energy needs here. A series of droughts have led to lack of water for hydroelectricity and a need to diversify electricity generation.

Living in Australia as I do, and in the Sunshine State of Queensland, I am used to the ubiquitous presence of rooftop solar and was surprised at the contrast with New Zealand. A quick google search led me to an article by Martin Jenkins which told me: “In Aotearoa, according to our Electricity Authority, only about 2.6% of residences have distributed generation installed (usually solar panels), making up less than 1% of total electricity generation.”

Aotearoa means land of the long white cloud. Does that tell us something? Probably not too much — according to the NZ Electricity Authority, most areas of NZ get more sunshine energy per year than Germany, which has one of the highest amounts of solar power capacity per capita in the world. “New Zealand’s first ‘large scale’ solar farm was the 1MW Rosedale floating solar farm — a creative solution to work around land constraints that was completed in 2020.” So, you might say that NZ is quite ‘new’ to the game.

To date, there are 8 operational utility-size solar farms in New Zealand, with more being built. “Transpower has received connection enquiries for more than 8,000MW in solar projects. 3,000MW of those solar projects include battery storage.”

A Meridian spokesperson said solar is starting to pick up in NZ, with a large amount of commercial solar in the pipeline, so there’ll be an awful lot more coming online in the next year or two. Right now, New Zealand has about 160 MW available to the grid (by comparison, hydro is 5415 MW and wind is 1259 MW). According to the Electric Authority, there’s about 200 MW of rooftop solar generation capacity installed — about 3% of Kiwi homes. News outlet RNZ did a good writeup about it late last year: “Is it worth getting a solar power system?“

As of this morning, solar was providing about 60 MW to the grid according to national distributor Transpower’s live link to the generation mix.

“Ruakākā Solar Farm is part of a wave of new builds that are boosting the country’s energy supply. These are busy times for Meridian and many others investing in the generation market, and our collective efforts will enable more electricity use, provide alternatives to thermal fuels and boost the country’s energy security in dry years. As more and more new renewable generation comes online, we’ll start to see wholesale power prices come down, which is what we want for kiwi homes and businesses,” says Neal Barclay.

“With 250,000 solar panels and covering an area the size of 170 rugby fields (163ha), Ruakākā Solar Farm will be capable of producing up to 230GWh of electricity per year — enough to power around half the homes in Northland. It is located next to Meridian’s 100MW Ruakākā Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), which will be fully operational in April, and will complete the company’s Ruakākā Energy Park.” I feel a Haka coming on. 

The 130MW/230GWh solar farm will work alongside Meridian’s Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) at Ruakākā. The Ruakākā BESS has a maximum power output of 100MW. It has a storage capacity of 200MWh, which means its maximum output — enough to power around 60,000 average households during winter — can be sustained for two hours. It will be connected directly to Transpower’s Bream Bay substation at 33kV. Solar energy will be conveyed to the switching station located at the BESS site, via several inverter stations and a 33kV connection, prior to injection into the national grid at Transpower’s Bream Bay substation.

What of the environmental impact of the solar farm? Meridian is ahead of the naysayers. “Planting will be used to screen the solar farm from neighbouring properties and the road. We are currently working through the detailed design of the project and expect construction to start in mid-2025. As part of the solar farm development, we plan to enhance and protect an existing 18ha wetland on site 1, which is significantly degraded after many years of cattle grazing. We will also create a new native habitat area of around 11.7ha, including a new 5ha wetland on site 3. These will provide habitats for taonga bird species such as bittern and dabchick ducks. The new wetland will help cleanse stormwater from the energy park and wider catchment before it flows into the Ruakākā River, delivering significant environmental benefits.” For the curious who want to know what a dabchick looks like — see here.

In answer to my questions about agrovoltaics, yes, agrivoltaics are a thing in New Zealand. Besides Ruakākā, the company is also doing a JV on a 400MW solar farm called Te Rahui — both are planned to have farming alongside them. There’s also a trial Meridian supported at Lincoln University where they are growing high-value horticulture like blueberries. Energy Farm will be the first in New Zealand to demonstrate high-value agrivoltaics. Wondered why I had blueberries in the title, didn’t you?

“The 1.5 MWp solar installation will comprise around 2,800 photovoltaic (PV) panels, generating ~2.3 GWh of renewable energy per year. The rows of bifacial PV panels will be mounted on a state-of-the-art east-west tracking system, with two different height configurations, allowing for commercial crop production alongside and underneath the panel structures. The specific high-value crops to be co-located with the solar array are yet to be determined but are likely to be blueberries, ranui berries or snowberries.
Next to the main array, a second smaller array will be dedicated to multi-use research as its main function, with complete manual control, different height and panel configurations, and different panel technologies.” WOW!

The pace of electrification is so rapid in New Zealand that I had to change the stats as I wrote this article. What is clear is that New Zealand is on track to renewable energy resilience by combining their proven reserves of hydropower with wind, solar, and batteries. Solar resources are being tapped to provide an environmentally friendly transition to renewable energy, and with blueberries. The Meridian BESS is certainly much better for tourists to the North Island of New Zealand than the old Marsden Point oil refinery. I know, I’ve seen it.