Lake Bonney 1 Wind farm

Grid-connected, distributed generation, renewable
Location: SA

The Site

The Woakwine Range is approximately 30 metres high and 120 km long, stretching from Carpenters Rocks in the south to Cape Jaffa in the north. The site provides an excellent wind resource compared to other Australian mainland sites, significant areas of rural land available for a large scale wind farm, proximity to transmission infrastructure, minimal environmental issues (the area being predominantly cleared grazing land) and the local community and council are supportive.

Technology

The turbines employed are Vestas V66 1.75 MW turbines (being the successor to the V66 1.65 MW machine) in wide use throughout the world, and having a successful operating history. The nacelles are mounted on 67 m steel tubular towers and are fitted with 33 m fibreglass blades. Automatic yaw and pitch controls enable maximum energy capture from the wind, as well as reducing stresses on the blades. An underground cable network within the wind farm links each turbine to a new purpose
built 132 KV substation at the southern end of the site.

Energy purchase and supply

On average the plant is expected to produce in excess of 200 GWh of electricity per annum, enough to power 44,000 households. Power and Renewable Energy Certificates generated are sold to Country Energy under a long term offtake contract. The wind farm dispatches energy to the local grid approximately 90 per cent of the time at an output dependent upon prevailing wind speeds. The wind farm is registered as a non-scheduled market generator in the National Electricity Market and is accredited under the Mandatory Renewable Energy Scheme and the Green Power Scheme. The wind farm is connected via a substation located on-site to a purpose built 132 KV transmission line which connects to Electranet's 132 KV transmission grid at the Snuggery substation approximately 9 km from the wind farm. The project was the first wind farm in Australia to be financed using a limited recourse project financing structure, which was developed by Babcock & Brown. It was also the first Australian wind farm to be connected to the grid at the high voltage transmission level (132 KV connection to Electranet grid).

Environmental impact

The plant is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 200,000 tonnes perannum - equivalent to removing more than 46,500 cars from the road each year.