October 10, 2007
Australia
Australia
Australia has commissioned the construction of a giant wind farm said to be capable of powering 400,000 homes. The project will see some 500 turbines being installed in New South Wales, near the town of Broken Hill, and will have a capacity of up to 1,000 megawatts.
We at El Reg are just pleased to hear that the Aussies are planning to build a wind farm in an area best known for being the backdrop to the second of the Mad Max films. Deal with that fuel crisis now, and put the kibosh on dystopian futures, eh?
More seriously, the Australian government hopes to make inroads on its target of generating 15 per cent of its energy needs from “low polluting” sources by 2020.
The construction will cost a whopping $1.8bn, according to reports, (that’s AU$2bn) with the contract going to German firm Conergy’s Epuron unit. Work on the farm is scheduled to begin in 2009, and is expected to take three to four years to complete.
Epuron already has contracts to build three other wind farms across the continent, capable of generating more modest amounts of electricity. A fourth proposal is going through planning approval, said Andrew Durran, executive director of the firm’s Australian business.
By Lucy Sherriff
9th October 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/10/10/australia-to-get-1000-megawatt-wind-farm/