NZ wind farm work suspended

Waipipi wind farm on-site work in South Taranaki, New Zealand, has been temporarily halted because of COVID-19 restrictions, but Tilt Renewables (TLT) says Dundonnell wind farm construction and commission is expected to continue in Victoria, Australia.

TLT owns seven operational wind farms across Australia and New Zealand and the two significant assets under construction – all expected to aid EV charging.

Its workforce is often required to work remotely as part of normal business activities with support infrastructure fully cloud based, its people working from home for the past fortnight already and normal business activities sustained.

TLT’s operational assets in both Australia and New Zealand provide a ‘lifeline utility’ or ‘essential

service’ and are therefore not subject to lockdown restrictions, the company says. However, appropriate protective measures against the spread of COVID‐19 are in place with TLT not experiencing any impact attributable to the pandemic on the operational asset fleet, generation volume, costs or revenue.

TLT has worked with operations and maintenance partners to take proactive measures to protect

the health of all site employees, including segregation of workgroups, back‐up coverage for certain

key skill sets, remote working for support staff and reinforcing general hygiene practices.

Routine maintenance activities may be deferred so site crews can focus on fault responses requiring physical attendance.

The 24/7 monitoring, bidding, dispatch, control of TLT’s windfarms is normally executed remotely or

automatically.

TLT’s two large scale construction projects in progress represent nearly A$1 billion of total

investment.

TLT has been working closely with its project partners, Vestas for the Dundonnell wind farm (DDWF)

in Victoria, Australia and Siemens Gamesa for the Waipipi wind farm (WWF) in New Zealand, to understand the impacts of COVID‐19 across the international supply chain, construction activities and movements of key personnel.

At DDWF, all wind turbine components have completed manufacturing with the final shipment to site underway from China.

Construction and commissioning activities continue with no current restrictions in relation to on‐site activities. Appropriate personnel distancing and hygiene protocols have been implemented. Some 28 turbines out of a total 80 are installed with commissioning ongoing.

Additional restrictions on activities such as construction are possible in Victoria, and these could lead to some delays with the turbines, TLT notes.

Minor delays to manufacturing of turbine components for WWF resulted from

China’s manufacturing shutdown during February and March.

However, the Chinese facilities have returned to operation, and these delays are not expected to have a material impact on the total project schedule, TTL adds.

Components being made in European factories have not been delayed.

On‐site activities have stopped for at least four weeks, as directed by the New Zealand Government.

TLT is confident the shutdown’s impact won’t materially affect the project.

Border restrictions in both New Zealand and Australia have presented some challenges in movement of key project personnel. However, alternative local resources with sufficient expertise have been identified where required.

Offtake agreements for both projects are not expected to be affected either.

TLT says it’s in a healthy cash position following completion of the Snowtown 2 wind farm sale in December. It has A$535.2 million, held mainly in term deposits.

The company also repaid the NZ$66.9 million syndicated bank facility due for repayment in October 2020.

The TLT FY20 earnings result is expected to be up to $1m lower than the bottom end of the updated guidance range of $118m-$122m provided in December 2019.

Final full year earnings will still be about 16% above original guidance for the year.