New Zealand wind farm at Dargaville reaches first generation
Mercury, the electric company majority owned by the New Zealand government, already has power flowing from its new wind farm near Dargaville, in Northland. Mercury own full year results filing with the stock exchange, dated August 18, 2026, states that the wind farm, called Kaiwaikawe, reached first generation in July 2026, meaning it started sending electricity into the grid, months before the whole project is finished. Full operation, meaning all 12 turbines running together, is still expected by the end of 2026. That detail comes from reading the regulatory filing directly rather than repeating older coverage that still described the New Zealand wind farm at Dargaville as under construction.
The turbines are the tallest built in New Zealand
Kaiwaikawe sits 12 kilometers northwest of Dargaville, 3 kilometers inland from the Tasman Sea, split into a northern cluster of 7 turbines and a southern cluster of 5. All 12 are the Vestas V162 model, the first of its kind installed in New Zealand, each one rated at 6.4 megawatts, a measure of how much electricity it can generate at once, adding up to 76.8 megawatts, widely rounded to 77 megawatts. Every turbine stands 125 meters tall at the tower alone and 206 meters at the blade tip, with a rotor 162 meters across, making these the tallest wind turbines built in New Zealand so far. The wind farm connects through a Northpower electrical substation near Dargaville into the national grid, the network of power lines that carries electricity around the country, at Maungatapere.
Every 1 of the 12 turbines installed shares these same dimensions.
Show the numbers
| Tower height | 125 |
| Rotor diameter | 162 |
| Tip height | 206 |
A 287,000,000 dollar project inside a 1,000,000,000 dollar push
Mercury put 287,000,000 dollars into building Kaiwaikawe. That is a little under a third of the 1,000,000,000 dollars Mercury names across 3 renewable projects finished around the same time, Kaiwaikawe, a wind farm expansion in Southland and a geothermal station expansion near Taupo. Construction on Kaiwaikawe began in January 2025 and broke ground on site on April 1, 2025. Mercury worked with Te Roroa, the Maori tribal group with historic ties to the land the wind farm sits on, throughout construction. Mercury also created a community fund that pays 30,000 dollars a year to the area around the wind farm, with applications open for 1 month each July.
The Kaiwaikawe figure is part of the total shown beside it, not separate money added on top of it.
Show the numbers
| Kaiwaikawe wind farm | 287 |
| Mercury 2026 renewable total | 1000 |
Mercury and the Energy Minister comment on the project
Mercury chief executive Stew Hamilton describes the people building Kaiwaikawe.
About 150 people will be working on the Kaiwaikawe site at any one time, with around 300 people working on the project overall
Stew Hamilton, Mercury chief executive. Source 5.
Energy Minister Simon Watts welcomed the wind farm at its groundbreaking in April 2025.
New Zealand needs more abundant and affordable renewable energy to keep New Zealand's households and businesses moving
Simon Watts, Energy Minister. Source 5.
EVs and Beyond, a New Zealand energy news site, reports that Kaiwaikawe alone can power around 27,000 homes, a figure Mercury own project page does not state itself.