Harapaki Wind Farm

Meridian Energy set out to cut carbon from the country's electricity supply by bringing on new renewable generation. Harapaki carried that strategy on the ground.

Meridian appointed RCP across two phases. A senior member of the RCP team already knew Meridian's systems, processes and people, which let RCP step in without a long run-up and get to work in the phases that mattered most.

In pre-construction, RCP acted as Pre-Construction Project Manager through the development stage before business case approval, coordinating the civil, electrical balance of plant, turbine engineering and Transpower grid connection work streams. Using Meridian's Quantitative Risk Assessment tools, RCP quantified and assessed the project's risks, oversaw the balance of plant designs that underpinned accurate costing, guided procurement of the major contracts and co-wrote the business case that won board approval.

On procurement, RCP co-authored the civil tender documentation, sat as tender evaluator for the civil and electrical balance work streams and helped draft and negotiate the turbine supply contract, around 70% of the project's value. That work handed Meridian's board a business case with finished designs and market-tested pricing to back.

After approval, delivery passed to Meridian's construction project manager and RCP's role shifted to specialist support. As Engineer to the Contract on the $165 million civil works contract, RCP ran health and safety audits of the civil contractor and advised the project team as needed. When Covid-19 and three cyclones hit the site, RCP handled the contractual side of those events, with contingency planning and insurance arrangements holding the budget.

Harapaki was delivered within a month of its original completion date and inside the capital forecast. The procurement and risk approaches proven here became a framework Meridian keeps applying to its later renewable projects.