The Oil Drum

The explosive growth of wind generation in NZ is making my head spin... doesn't even need to be subsidised, and is not only highly complementary with baseload hydro, but can even provide part of baseload in itself, given that the isles are windy as well as shaky... with reinforced interconnection between widely scattered sites, anyway.

May I recommend the NZ Sustainable Energy Forum site, and in particular their Energy Watch quarterly (?) newsletter.

Some highlights from the most recent issue (PDF) :
[page 27]

... the total electricity being generated from renewable resources in the March 2007 quarter was 74% of the total. This compares with 64% in the March 2006 quarter.

An enviable position by world standards... but still too dependent on fossil fuels:
[page 28]

On 23 February 2007, Contact Energy announced plans for a $2 billion investment in renewable electricity generation over the next five years, including two wind farms and two new geothermal plants.
[...]
Contact has told its investors that the NZ electricity industry could make a 40% cut in its total GHG emissions by 2014 if rival Genesis Power's coal-fired plant at Huntly was cut by more than 80% in that time. But that scenario would require a carbon charge of at least NZ$20 per tonne of carbon dioxide to reduce Huntly’s competitiveness against new gas-fired power plants and also to make new wind and hydro-electricity projects viable.
Responding to this, a Genesis spokesman stated that anybody advocating pulling Huntly out of the market in seven years hasn’t “got their numbers right" because it is difficult to see how a new gas-turbine power station built at today’s capital cost and with tomorrow’s gas prices is going to push Huntly out of the market, even if there was a NZ$40 per tonne carbon charge.