Offshore wind and Hydrogen | New Zealand

Offshore wind and Hydrogen | New Zealand

 

I've been tracking the global situation with regards to offshore wind, floating wind, and of course hydrogen and been watching the global tectonics as countries which have been slow on the uptake including Australia, perhaps the Philippines, the United States.

 

Now New Zealand is pivoting and showing signs of a nascent offshore wind and hydrogen economy.

 

With this in mind, I was interested to see recent developments in New Zealand from BlueFloat This week Waikato was publicised with a five gigawatt offshore wind proposal sited off south Island.

This builds upon the Taranaki roadmap shared with the community in April 2020, and some of the cutting edge technologies evident in Europe

 

 

New Zealand’s wind resource makes the prospect of coupling offshore wind floating wind and hydrogen feasible.  The healthy 148 Fixed foundation potential is augmented by an astounding  2 000 GW plus of its sibling Floating Wind-  in high level studies.

The global wind resource map below clearly shows that the resource to be favourable

With signs of movement in nearby Australia there may be synergies between the two markets as local content and supply chains start to mobilise the two major projects which I have already shared with the community include Taranaki, which includes a floating wind and hydrogen scheme based around old oil and gas resources which may be ripe for the energy transition.

The maps themselves tell something of the story whether the projects now go into development to align with New Zealand's cop 27 and climate change commitments is something that I will be tracking closely. I expect to be in southern in the Australia New Zealand region next year, and hope to be able to share more detail at that time.

Stay tuned:  Hydrogen New Zealand