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New Plymouth Airport solar farm keeps NPDC power bills grounded

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PUBLISHED: 28 OCT 2025
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This summer’s TSB Festival of Lights at Pukekura will be the first to light up with zero emissions as NPDC moves to cheaper, 100 per cent renewable electricity across its operations.​

Around half of NPDC’s electricity – 6.2 gigawatt hours, about the same as 885 average four-person households – will come from the New Plymouth Airport solar farm from 1 November under a five-year deal with the NPDC-owned airport company Papa Rererangi i Puketapu (PRIP). ​

The organisation already sources the rest of its electricity from renewable supplies.​

“Like every household, when electricity prices are rising, we shop around for the best deal. The Airport solar power is a great deal with a 20 per cent saving on the general market rate and it’s cleaner, cutting our direct emissions from our facilities and vehicles by about 10 per cent, or 630 tonnes of CO2 equivalent each year,” said NPDC Climate Change Response Lead Greg Stephens.​

“As well as keeping the lights on at the Festival of Lights and in our office spaces, electricity powers our core services such as street and traffic lights, keeps our water and wastewater pumping, charges our electric vehicle fleet, our pools, libraries and venues, including all those summer gigs at the Bowl of Brooklands.”​

New Plymouth Airport Chief Executive David Scott said the solar farm made good use of buffer land around the airport and shielded the airport – and airport users – from power price spikes and cost hikes.​

“Supplying NPDC is a win-win as it secures a buyer for our excess electricity as we get the solar farm up to full capacity and it supplies other NPDC facilities with cheaper, greener power,” said Mr Scott.​

The Airport solar farm, comprising 14,400 solar panels over 15 hectares, was built with $14 million in funding from the Local Government Funding Agency and will be repaid from Airport revenues. NPDC was the first organisation to secure a low-interest loan for a solar farm und the LGFA’s Green and Social Loans programme.​

In 2023, the Mayor and Councillors adopted the District-wide Emissions Reduction Plan, which outlines NPDC’s actions to reduce its emissions and contribute to a cleaner and greener future.​

Fast facts:​

  • NPDC has about 115 vehicles, including nine electric vehicles, 23 hybrids, and three plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.​
  • Our goal to make NPDC carbon neutral by 2050 includes covering 10 per cent of our urban area in trees through Planting our Place.​
  • Since 2018, NPDC emissions from natural gas use have fallen24 per cent to 2,013 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, and emissions from electricity by 22 per cent to 1,249.
  • The annual TSB Festival of Lights in Pukekura Park runs for five weeks over summer. This summer it’s on 20 December to 24 January.

Caption: This summer’s TSB Festival of Lights will be lit with clean, green electricity.  Photo credit: Charlotte Curd.

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Page last updated: 10:37am Tue 28 October 2025

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