Windflow ends year on high note

23 December 2005

Windflow Technology has received confirmation of the order for the first five wind turbines for NZ Windfarms Limited.

In announcing this sale, Windflow’s CEO Geoff Henderson said: "This batch confirmation marks our move from prototype to production and income from turbine sales. It’s an exciting step forward for our company and the New Zealand wind industry."

Windflow has a sale and purchase agreement with its former wholly-owned subsidiary to build and install 97 turbines (in four batches) on NZ Windfarms' Te Rere Hau wind farm. Confirmation of the first batch was subject only to NZ Windfarms having a successful initial public offering.

The company expects that the manufacture of this first batch of turbines will add approximately 20 jobs to New Zealand’s manufacturing industry. Windflow has appointed Hugh Aston (previously General Manager of ASCO Carbon Dioxide) to set up the company’s production line.

In other news this week, the Banks Peninsula District Council has confirmed that the company's prototype at Gebbies Pass complies with the sound levels required under its resource consent. Until now the prototype has been operating under a provisional compliance notice from the Council. Detailed sound measurements have been made over the last two months by an independent consultant commissioned by the Council. "These have confirmed the initial assessment we made last year that the turbine is operating well within its resource consent conditions", said Mr Henderson.

"The prototype is now accumulating significant running hours and quietly achieving availability in the 95-100% range. We are now moving beyond the prototype phase. Although we still have plenty of work to do monitoring the prototype for IEC certification, we can now look forward to steadily increasing our production capacity. It's been a roller-coaster year for us,”"Mr Henderson said. "And we’re ending it with a positive outlook for 2006."