Waitaki Wind Ltd, set up in 2009 by former Waitaki Mayor Alan McLay and former Meridian Energy Ltd chief executive Dr Keith Turner, has had monitoring equipment on Mt Stalker and Dome Hills properties gathering wind information.
Yesterday, Dr Turner said information was still being gathered from the two sites, with one "looking considerably better" than the other.
He declined to identify which site was performing better.
Information would continue to be gathered, providing about 18 months of data, before a decision was made in April or May on the next step for the company.
Land owners at the two sites had reached agreement with Waitaki Wind to install wind monitoring towers and, if a scheme proved viable, construct and operate a wind farm.
A loan of $100,000 from four local investors was helping fund the investigations.
Resource consents would be needed from the Waitaki District Council and possibly the Otago Regional Council to build and operate a wind farm.
If consent was granted, the final steps would be determining whether the project was economically viable, raising capital and building the wind farm.
Both were remote sites, could not be seen from Oamaru, and no-one lived within 5km.
The land being investigated had no conservation value, and both sites were being used for sheep farming.
The sites had access to Transpower transmission lines - Dome Hills to the 220kV Livingstone line and Mt Stalker to the 110kV coastal line.
Dr Turner and Mr McLay, while initial shareholders, envisaged a locally-owned electricity generation project, with the benefits flowing directly to the North Otago community.
If the project was commercially viable, Dr Turner hoped it could be financed by entities, companies and individuals in North Otago.
The wind farm could be a valuable investment for farmers, irrigation companies and Holcim New Zealand, whose proposed cement plant in the Waiareka Valley would be a heavy user of electricity.
Other potential investors could be community-owned companies, including Network Waitaki, he said.
