Tauhei Solar Farm, Te Aroha, New Zealand
Aurecon has been appointed as the Owner’s Engineer for New Zealand’s largest solar project, located at Te Aroha in Waikato.
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Providing Aotearoa New Zealand with reliable local and grid-scale renewable energy sources is key to successfully transitioning the country to its sustainable energy future. Aurecon is pleased to support the Auckland based developer Lodestone Energy Limited, in building its portfolio of clean, solar renewable energy in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Lodestone is developing a portfolio of 198MW across five solar PV projects and have now started construction on two of its five solar farms located in the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. When completed, the five solar farm portfolio spread across the North Island will produce more than 365GWh of clean and green renewable energy to homes and businesses which is enough to power 50,000 homes, or a population equivalent to the size of Aotearoa New Zealand’s fourth largest city, Kirikiriroa Hamilton.
In December 2022, Lodestone began construction of its first solar farm – the 33MW Kaitāia project. Once in operation the Kaitāia solar farm will produce approximately 55GWh of clean renewable energy via a 33kV connection to Top Energy’s distribution network.
Lodestone’s second solar farm is located near the township of Edgecumbe, in the Bay of Plenty. The 32MW Edgecumbe project achieved financial close and started construction in March 2023, and once completed will generate approximately 52GWh of power to the grid via a Horizon Networks connection.
Pre-construction development work is well underway for the remaining three projects. Lodestone’s third solar farm is on schedule and due to commence construction in the last quarter of 2023. The remaining two projects’ financial close is targeted for Q3 of 2024.
Lodestone as project sponsors and owners, successfully raised the necessary debt and equity required to develop, build, and operate the five solar farms, including closing project finance of $300 million dollars of capital. In total the solar farms will include around 360,000 Trina solar panels on approximately 350 hectares of land and over the next two years will provide hundreds of direct and indirect local jobs for New Zealanders.
Lodestone’s innovative ‘agrivoltaic’ elevated solar array design solutions will ensure sustainable, productive use of the farmland beneath, preserving 85 per cent of existing baseline agricultural and livestock yields.
Lodestone is now developing the second phase of its capital plan, with a number of new solar sites under advanced stages of investigation. Aurecon, acting as Independent Certifier (IC) to the principal project lender Westpac, will ensure the projects from conception to completion are viable, therefore providing technical assurance to Westpac on its return-on-investment.
Aurecon has been appointed as the Owner’s Engineer for New Zealand’s largest solar project, located at Te Aroha in Waikato.
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