Meridian Energy, Nova to form joint venture for 400MW New Zealand solar PV plant

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit
Email
The solar PV plant will be developed in two 200MW stages. Image: Meridian Energy.

Meridian Energy, a New Zealand state-owned energy company, and Nova Energy, a Wellington-headquartered subsidiary of conglomerate Todd Corporation, have agreed to form a joint venture to build and operate one of New Zealand’s largest solar PV plants.

On 20 December, the two companies partnered to form a 50-50 joint venture to aid the development of the 400MW Te Rahui solar PV plant.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Unlock unlimited access for 12 whole months of distinctive global analysis

Photovoltaics International is now included.

  • Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
  • In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
  • Unlimited digital access to the PV Tech Power journal catalogue
  • Unlimited digital access to the Photovoltaics International journal catalogue
  • Access to more than 1,000 technical papers
  • Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual

Or continue reading this article for free

Although the site would rank amongst the largest in the country for generation capacity, it is still trumped by projects such as the proposed Helios Energy New Zealand Solar PV Park, which will have a generation capacity of 1GW. It is worth noting that this development is currently in the permitting stage.

The Te Rahui site, which will require NZ$660 million (US$370 million) of investment to develop fully, will be located in Rangitāiki, within the Taupō District on New Zealand’s north island.

Resource consent for the site was acquired in April 2024 with plans to reach a Financial Investment Decision in Q1 of 2025. Once this has been completed, the solar PV plant will be developed in two 200MW stages.

Meridian chief executive Neal Barclay said the 50-50 offtake agreement with Nova “makes strong commercial sense”.

“At 400MW, Te Rahui is a big project and sharing the investment and offtake makes strong commercial sense for both parties, while the project will also benefit home and business customers by further strengthening security of supply,” Barclay said.

“It’s a real win-win and we’re delighted to have this opportunity to partner with Nova on Te Rahui.”

Meridian and Nova have signed non-binding terms sheets regarding Te Rahui and intend to enter into binding agreements early next year, including power purchase agreements (PPAs) for the electricity produced from the solar PV plant. 

Readers of PV Tech will likely be aware of Meridian’s presence within New Zealand’s solar PV market. The organisation is behind the development of the 120MW Ruakākā Solar Farm, which was granted development consent in September 2024. It is hoped that the site will be finished in late 2026.

The project will feature 250,000 solar PV modules and is the second stage of the development of the Ruakākā Energy Park, which also includes a 100MW/200MWh duration battery energy storage system (BESS).

As reported by our sister site, Energy-Storage.newsSaft is providing the 2-hour duration system, which will participate in energy arbitrage and frequency regulation and help free up network hosting capacity in the reserve markets of the country’s North Island.

20MW solar PV plant in Pukenui nears completion

Elsewhere in the New Zealand solar PV market, Far North Solar Farm, a solar energy asset developer based in Auckland, revealed that around 70% of the solar PV modules have been installed at the Pukenui Solar Farm, with energisation scheduled for early 2025.

Dutch developer and asset owner Photon Energy Group is carrying out the ongoing module installation. Once this has been completed, electrical work and testing will begin before the 20.8MW solar PV plant is fully energised.  

The plant is located on the northern tip of New Zealand’s north island, around 360km from Auckland.

Read Next

July 18, 2025
Georgia Power’s 2025 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) will see the utility aim to install 4GW of new renewable power capacity by 2035.
July 18, 2025
Decisions and actions related to the US Department of Interior (DoI) will ‘undergo elevated review’ of solar PV and wind facilities.
July 17, 2025
Corporate funding in the solar sector fell by 39% in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period last year.
July 17, 2025
Swedish solar developer OX2 has submitted plans for a 150MW solar-plus-storage project in Queensland to Australia’s EPBC Act.
July 17, 2025
Pilecom, a mechanical installer of utility-scale solar projects, has officially started work on European Energy’s 106MW Lancaster solar PV power plant in Victoria, Australia.
July 16, 2025
Supply-demand imbalances and inventory pressures have driven down prices and negatively impacted the operational performance of several listed Chinese PV companies that released their 2025 interim forecasts this week.

Subscribe to Newsletter

Upcoming Events

Media Partners, Solar Media Events
September 2, 2025
Mexico City, Mexico
Solar Media Events
September 16, 2025
Athens, Greece
Solar Media Events
September 22, 2025
Bilbao, Spain
Solar Media Events
September 30, 2025
Seattle, USA
Solar Media Events
October 1, 2025
London, UK