Australian renewables developer Tilt Renewables is to sell electricity to Genesis Energy from the 130MW Waverley wind farm in New Zealand.
The 20-year power purchase agreement will allow Tilt to complete the remaining development activities, take the final investment decision and start to build the project in South Taranaki within the next six to nine months.
Tilt will own and operate the wind farm, which is expected to come online by September 2021.
Resource consent for the project was granted in July 2017 and the latest design will include 31 turbines installed on the 980 hectare site, the company said.
Tilt chief executive Deion Campbell said: “Tilt Renewables is pleased to have finalised this long-term offtake agreement with Genesis, which will underpin the delivery of this exciting renewable energy project.”
Genesis chief executive Marc England said finalisation of the deal with Tilt sits within its Future-gen framework, which is aimed at identifying opportunities to decarbonise New Zealand’s energy sector while continuing to supply reliable, affordable electricity.
He said: “Through this lens we will continue our track record of reducing carbon emissions in the electricity sector whilst not materially impacting the cost of electricity for New Zealand homes and businesses.
“The Waverley wind farm comes at a price that is competitive with other forms of baseload electricity, which is particularly important as we meet demand from the transport and industrial heating sectors looking to electrify in the coming years.”
The two companies signed a strategic partnership in October last year to develop more renewable energy together, with Waverley the first project under that agreement.