Southland Wind Farm

Project summary

Wind farm to include:

• construction and operation of up to 55 wind turbines, each up to approximately 7MW in capacity and a ‘tip height’ of up to 220m 

• electrical reticulation, consisting of underground cables and wind turbine transformers  

• a wind farm substation to collect the power generated by the wind turbines, located at Jedburgh Station  

• a switching station (also known as Grid Injection Point (“GIP”)) located adjacent to the existing Transpower 220kV circuit between Invercargill and Dunedin

• an overhead single or double circuit 220kV transmission line between the wind farm substation and the GIP to provide connection to the Transpower National Grid  

• up to two permanent meteorological masts each up to approximately 140m in height 

• an operations and maintenance building 

• construction of roading, turbine foundations and 'hard stand' areas adjacent to each turbine.

Project location

The project area covers 58km² of privately owned land on Slopedown Hill in eastern Southland, approximately 30km southeast of Gore.

Project referral

The Minister for Infrastructure referred the project to the Fast-track on 31 July 2025. The application was lodged on 2 April 2025.

Notice of decisions on application for referral of Southland Wind Farm (PDF, 170KB)

Completeness decision

The substantive application by Contact Energy Limited was deemed complete on 18 September 2025. The application complies with the requirements of section 46 (2) of the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024. The application was lodged on 29 August 2025.

Decision on completeness and scope – Southland Wind Farm substantive application (PDF, 95KB)

Competing applications decision

The substantive application by Contact Energy Limited was deemed to not have any competing applications or existing resource consents on 30 September 2025. This decision is required under section 47 of the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024.

Record of decision on competing applications − Southland Wind Farm substantive application (PDF, 68KB)

The application has been provided to the panel convener.

Decision of appointment of panel and timing of panel decisions

On 31 October 2025, the panel convener issued a Minute. This covers:

• the appointment of the expert panel

• the timeframe for panel decisions for the Southland Wind Farm project under clause 2 of section 79 of the Act. 

The minute can be viewed on the correspondence page.

Correspondence