From the late-1950s to the 1980s, companies with deep pockets fought over oil and gas deposits on and off Taranaki in a modern-day equivalent of the Central Otago gold rush of the 1860s. Taranaki boomed with oil fever and many Kiwi investors became millionaires after the world’s eighth-biggest gas field was developed and more discoveries followed.
But by the 2010s, the exhaustion of the Māui gas field loomed on the horizon and the appetite for oil and gas exploration was shrinking as the spectre of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change grew. In 2018 came Jacinda Ardern’s announcement that the party was over; hydrocarbons were bad for the planet: “There will be no further offshore oil and gas exploration permits granted.”
New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom deemed the news “a kick in the guts” but it was not long before a greener, cleaner form of resource exploitation blew fresh hope into the Taranaki, and national, economies: offshore wind farming.
New Zealand’s need for renewable energy is obvious every time electricity generators struggle to meet demand in a cold snap. More capacity is also needed for electrification of the vehicle fleet and industrial heating. If New Zealand is to meet its emissions reductions targets of 100% renewable energy by 2035 and net-zero emissions by 2050, electricity generation needs to rise by about 70%, all of it from renewable sources.
As the reported in March last year, offshore wind farms proposed by international consortiums in the South Taranaki Bight promised to deliver a big chunk of the additional capacity needed by 2050. The area was once branded by the Global
