Wind farms in New South Wales

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If the farm is ever built the turbines will run along several ridges from Ben Lomond.

I was unable to find a Net page for either company, nor for the project.

Wind Farm Development had or have some involvement in this farm; they have a Net page on the project. The majority owner is Epuron, who have a Net site here.

The project received approval from the NSW state government in early June 2009. This was announced by Premier Nathan Rees in Parliament about 3rd June.

On the information available to me when I first wrote this section, Silverton seemed an odd choice of site; the Wind Resource Map of Australia and the NSW wind resource map both indicate that Broken Hill is not particularly windy; both show it as less windy than most of the highlands along the eastern coast and the Australia map shows the area as much less windy than many areas of WA, SA, and southern Victoria. Also there is not a big local market for the power, Broken Hill has a population of around 20 000 and not a huge amount of industry; it could not possibly use all the power from such a big wind farm and there are no high capacity transmission lines near the city.

These apparent difficulties were largely explained by Andrew Durren of Epuron/Taurus Energy on 2009/01/05 who stated:

• Mesoscale wind resource maps are unreliable and the wind resource at Silverton is better than indicated on the Wind Resource Map of Australia;
• An initial powerline will connect the farm with Broken Hill (approximately 25km) and a second powerline will suppliment this by connecting to [a high capacity transmission line in] Red Cliffs in Victoria (approximately 300km).

The project is apparently to be built in several stages with probably more than 280 turbines to be built in stage 1 and a further 316 in stage 2. (From ABC On-line news, 2009/06/03.)

Ownership of this wind farm has changed several times. As of October 2008 it is owned by three companies: a Portuguese company called Martifer owns 25%, Macquarie Capital Group Ltd owns 25%, the remaining 50% is owned by Epuron, a company of the European Conergy Group.

It has been stated that in a typical year the wind farm will be able to contribute up to 4.5% of the total energy needs of NSW (Australia's most populous state), but the actual figure will of course depend on the final size of the project.

The city of Broken Hill is, in many ways, by default a part of South Australia even though it is geographically in New South Wales. The fact is that it is much closer to Adelaide than to Sydney (420km and 940km respectively, as the crow flies). It's radio and TV programs come from South Australia, and it is closer to the population centres of South Australia than to those of NSW (300km from Jamestown, SA; 670km from Dubbo, NSW). The ores from its famous mines have always been railed to South Australia for smelting and/or shipping. So the Broken Hill wind farm is of especial interest to me, a South Australian.

Boco Rock wind farm

The Bombala Times printed an article on 2009/07/15, stating that the number of turbines proposed had been increased from 73 (spread over nine properties) to either 107 or 125 (spread over 17 properties) and that tower heights had been increased to 100m.

The wind farm is mostly between Tarago and Lake George, and about 50km SSW of Goulburn; the location is shown on the Goulburn area map. My information, of which I cannot be sure, is that they will be in three groups: at Groses Hill east of Lake George (about Lat. S 35.06°, Long. E 149.51°) in the Hammonds Hill-Ellendon area (about Lat. S 35.17°, Long. E 149.50°), and a few in the Boro area, SSW of Tarago (about Lat. S 35.19°, Long. E 149.63°).

An interactive map showing its location and giving directions on how to get there is available on ExplorOz.

In May 2008 the NSW Government announced that power from this wind farm would be used to run the proposed Kurnell (Sydney) desalination plant. Infigen managing director Miles George said the desalination plant would use 40MW of electricity when it began operating this summer, and that any left over power generated by the wind farm would go into the national electricity grid.

The wind farm operators are Great Southern Energy and Pacific Power. Argyle County has a page on the wind farm, from which much of this information came; also see Eraring Energy.

The proposer was a consortium of TME Australia, since taken over by Union Fenosa, and Gamesa Energy Australia P.L. Much of the information above came from TME's Net page, which is no longer available.

Approval was given by the state Planning Minister in late February 2007 and preliminary construction works commenced at the end of January 2008 around the time that Origin Energy acquired the development rights from Epuron.

Both Origin and Epuron have Net pages on this wind farm.

ABC reported that the turbine towers would be 85m high with blades nearly 47m long.

It was announced on 3rd July 2009 that planning approval had been given by Planning Minister Kristina Keneally. At the same time it was mentioned that there were to be 73 turbines. I have not been able to find out the exact installed power of each turbine, and the figure for 190MW (below) for the whole farm was back-calculated from the expeced annual CO2 abatement.

Gunning wind farm

The developer was Acciona Energy, however, on Dec. 22, 2009 I was unable to find anything about it on the Acciona Net site.

The NSW Government, Industry & Investment Net site gave the installed capacity as 62MW on Dec. 2009.

Julian Law of Macquarie Generation informed me that completion is due by the winter of 2010. I believe that all major contracts have been signed, but work on the ground is not yet underway (Jan. 2010).

Hampton Park wind farm

The turbines are to be in two areas, Mountain Station is about latitude S 32.07° and longitude E 150.74° (31 turbines, and Middlebrook Station is about latitude S 31.95° and longitude E 150.78° (3 turbines).

This is a particularly interesting and unusual project because beyond the wind turbines it is to include from 3 to 10MW of solar (photovoltaic) collectors and a closed-loop mini hydro-electric plant. Pamada hopes that the project will have a total generating capacity of 137MW.

ABC On-line news reported on 2010/02/10 that the NSW Planning Minister had approved the project.

The turbines will be built on both sides of the Goulburn to Oberon Road, 45km south of Oberon, 30km north of Taralga, and 70km north of Goulburn.

Union Fenosa's pdf fact sheet states that "It is expected that the environmental impact statement will be finalised by mid to late 2009." It goes on to say that "If approved, it is anticipated construction will commence in early 2011 and will continue for approximately 12 months."

As of early 2010 there seems to have been no announcements on this project for several years.

This project was approved by the local council several years ago. Andrew Durran of Epuron stated that as of 2009/01/05 a construction date had not yet been decided (the Epuron Net page gives "Initial startup 2008/2009").

Taralga wind farm

The location is shown on the Goulburn area map.

The Goulburn Post reported on 2008/08/29 that there will be 61 turbines and that they will be 131.5m tall.

Until a wind farm gets at least to the point where an application for approval has been submitted to the relevant authority it may be little more than wishfull thinking and is not worth covering in more detail than that below.

Wind farms that have been proposed in NSW

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