Wind farms in Tasmania

Cattle Hill Wind Farm

Location of Cattle Hill Wind Farm From The Mercury

It was expected that the wind farm would be spread over 4000ha on the eastern side of Lake Echo, would have turbines that would reach 125m high, and yet would be visible from only two local residents.

Most of the above information came from an article by Phillippa Duncan of The (Tasmanian) Mercury, April 4th 2010.

It was reported in The Mercury on 2011/12/04 that this project has been approved by the EPA; approval is still required from the Federal Government and the Central Highlands Council. The company anticipates that it will be producing power in 2014.

Flinders Island Wind Farm

"Yes there are two wind turbines on Flinders Island. 1 x 55 kW unit installed in 88 and 1 x 25 kW unit installed in 96. These units are not owned by Hydro Tasmania, they are privately owned and Hydro Tasmania purchase's all the power they produce."

Photo acknowledgement: Peter Kempster

ABC on-line news, November 21, 2007 reported...

Hydro Tasmania has secured all the approvals it needs to build up to four wind turbines on Flinders Island. The turbines would produce between 0.9 and 3.4 megawatts of power and cut the the island's reliance on diesel by 30 per cent or about 350,000 litres annually. The Leader of Government Business in the Legislative Council, Doug Parkinson, says Hydro's plans are progressing well. "Hydro Tasmania has secured the development approval for up to four wind turbines on Flinders Island," he said. "Once wind turbine supply has been secured, the business case will be progressed for consideration by Hydro Tasmania's board."

A page by RISE, Research Institute for Sustainable Energy, also mentioned some wind power installed on Flinders Island in 1988 and a second stage in 1996.

I emailed Hydro Tasmania (webmaster@hydro.com.au) on 19th Dec. 2008 requesting more information; had not received a reply by 2009/03/19.

Huxley Hill Wind Farm

Also known as the King Island Wind Farm

In interesting feature of Huxley Hill is that it includes a 'vanadium redox flow battery' (see Wikipedia); this is capable of storing up to 800kWh of surplus energy and releasing it as required. This was insalled during stage 2.

I thank Peter Kempster, who lives on King Island, for some of the above information.

Huxley Hill Wind Farm is located at South Latitude 39.93° and East Longitude 143.87°

The project includes a new transmission line to connect the wind farm into the Tasmanian network at Derby, about 40km to the South-West.

India Infoline reported 2011/12/10 that Vestas has received an order from Hydro Tasmania to supply 56 units of the V90-3.0 MW wind turbine for this project.

ABC online news reported on 2011/12/07 that 200 jobs would be created during construction and quoted Hydro Tasmania's chief executive, Roy Adair, as saying "This increases our renewable energy capability and is an ideal partner for our hydro capability because clearly we can utilise the wind when its blowing and then we can utilise the hydro capability later and optimise the value of that hydro generation." The ABC article went on to say that "Launceston company Haywards will manufacture the tower section of the turbines." On 2011/12/12 7th Space Interactive reported that the turbines would be V90-3.0 MW models and that "delivery is supposed to begin in the fourth quarter of 2012 and the project is expected to be completed by June 2013."

Nichols Poultry

Status	# Turbines	kW	Commissioned	Lat.	Long.
Operating	1	225	2008	S 41.257°	E 146.513°

The turbine is a Vestas V27

On 2011/12/22 the Wall Street Journal published online the following "Guohua, a unit of China's state-owned coal giant Shenhua Group, is acquiring interests in the 65-megawatt Bluff Point and 75-megawatt Studland Bay wind farms." Hydro Tasmania needs the procedes of this deal to finance the Musselroe Wind Farm.

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 Tasmania