The uplifting
AUSTRALIAN WIND GENERATION has come
Winds of change During 2021 renewable energy generation reached record levels, delivering almost one third of Australia’s energy mix. Wind power contributed the lion’s share at 11.6 per cent, ahead of rooftop PV’s 7.8 per cent and large scale solar’s 4.2 per cent. Now some major developments both in terms of size and location of wind farms herald an astonishing change of direction and ambition.
a long way since 1987 when the groundbreaking six turbine Salmon Beach wind farm towered over the land near Esperance. The next notable development was also in the region and an impressive one and a half times the size with nine turbines. In the intervening decades the industry has undergone a remarkable evolution. Today’s largest wind farm, the 453MW Coopers Gap Wind Farm in Queensland boasts a field of 123 turbines and the 420MW Macarthur Wind Farm in Victoria houses 140 wind turbines, while South Australia is home to the 369MW Snowtown Wind Farm. Last year the industry powered ahead with the commissioning of a series of utility scale wind farms. Australia now has ten wind farms with a generating capacity greater than 200MW, including CWP Renewables’ 270MW Sapphire Wind Farm. All are located on the East Coast, and perhaps surprisingly Victoria takes the lead with its 31 wind projects and 2,610MW capacity, followed by SA’s 204 wind farms (2,051MW) and NSW with 20 wind projects totalling 1,902MW – three times that of wind power pioneer WA’s 638MW capacity. Projects in today’s pipeline are set to eclipse all others. Among the top five onshore wind power projects are the 800-1,000MW Golden Plains Wind Farm near Ballarat in Victoria scheduled for completion in 2024. There’s also the $1.5 billion 800MW Clarke Creek Energy Hub in Queensland which proposes up to 195 wind turbines and the mighty 1,200MW Forest Wind Farm also in Queensland which will host up to 226 Siemens Gamesa turbines and could be operational by late 2023. On the drawing board is the 1,026MW, 180 turbine MacIntyre Wind Farm in Queensland. Along with others in development this will add 6,926MW – yes, an astonishing 6.9GW – in capacity, enough to power more than two million homes.
The wrap on wind Typical land-based turbine blades measure up to 52 metres; the world’s largest is GE’s Haliade-X offshore wind turbine with blades 107 metres long, the length of a football field. Most blades are white for aesthetic reasons, some are grey, some have a red stripe to boost visibility to aircraft. Worldwide during 2020, wind power delivered more than six per cent of electricity at 743GW of which 707.4GW was onshore. China’s 7.9GW Gansu Wind Farm (Jiuquan Wind Power Base) on the fringe of the Gobi Desert is the world’s largest. But for how long?
