Carbon Offsets
The Te Apiti wind farm is also a carbon offset project. In 2005 the British bank HSBC purchased 125,000 tonnes worth of carbon credits from Meridian generated by the wind farm. Meridian Energy also sold the Dutch government 530,000 tonnes of carbon credits from Te Apiti. The price per tonne was considered to be about $10.40 a tonne. In both cases, the carbon credits for Te Apiti were from New Zealand's Assigned amount units allocated under the Kyoto Protocol. The New Zealand Government granted the AAUs to Meridian Energy as an incentive for carbon neutral power development under the Projects to Reduce Emissions programme (or PRE).
As of 2007, installed capacity of wind turbines in New Zealand has reached 321 MW and a further 46.5 MW is under construction.
Read more about this topic: Te Apiti Wind Farm