Macarthur_Wind_Farm

Macarthur Wind Farm

Macarthur Wind Farm

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The Macarthur Wind Farm is a wind farm located in Macarthur, Victoria, Australia, near Hamilton, 260 km west of Melbourne. It is on a 5,500 ha site which has an installed capacity of 420 megawatts (MW).[2][3] Based on a capacity factor of around 35%, it is estimated that the long-term average generation will be approximately 1,250 GWh per year. Its actual capacity factor is much lower, with a historical average of 26.29% since 2013.

Quick Facts Country, Location ...

It is the largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere generating enough power for 220,000 homes and abating 1.7 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, at a capacity factor of 35%.[4] The wind farm comprises 140 Vestas V112-3.0MW wind turbines manufactured in Denmark.[2]

The project cost about A$1 billion and was fully operational in January 2013.[1] It was constructed by Vestas and Leighton Contractors.[5] The first turbines were connected to the grid in September 2012.[6] AGL Energy also invested an additional $27m in the substation, which is completely owned by the company.

History

The project was proposed in 2004 and approved by the Government of Victoria in October 2006.

The project was developed by a joint venture formed by AGL Energy and Meridian Energy, a New Zealand-based power generating company, with works starting in 2010. The project was fully operational in January 2013.[1]

In 2013, Meridian sold its 50% share in the wind farm to Malaysian power company Malakoff Corporation Berhad for A$650 million.[7][8] In September 2015, AGL Energy sold its 50% stake in the wind farm to Morrison & Co for $532m.[9]

AGL Energy will operate and maintain the wind farm in place of Morrison & Co and Malakoff. It also reserves the rights to all renewable energy certificates and electricity production until 2038.[10]

Operations

The wind farm registered its first grid output in September 2012 and reached full output in March 2013. The generation table uses eljmkt nemlog to obtain generation values for each month. The URL must be formatted as: "http://nemlog.com.au/show/unit/YYYYMMDD/YYYYMMDD/?k1=GENCODE" Macarthur's code is MACARTH1, so that is used.

More information Year, Total ...

Note: Asterisk indicates power output was limited during the month.

Performance

Macarthur has consistently been one of the worst performing wind farms since its construction in 2012.[11] It was intended to have a capacity factor around 34%[12] and generate 1240 GWh of energy per annum.[12]

However, the most the farm has generated was 1081 GWh in 2013, and has consistently averaged around 994 GWh, which corresponds to a capacity factor of 27%.

See also

References

  1. [1]
    "Macarthur Wind Farm". AGL Energy.
  2. [2]
    "AGL venture plans $1b wind farm". Sydney Morning Herald. 13 August 2010.
  3. [3]
    Alexandra Weaver (17 November 2011). "Giant turbine blades arrive for Macarthur farm". The Standard.
  4. [4]
    Perry, Michael (22 August 2010). "Australia Steps Up Renewable Energy Efforts". New York Times.
  5. [5]
    "AGL and New Zealand firm Meridian Energy to set up $1 billion Renewable energy in Victoria". Power-Gen. 16 August 2010.
  6. [6]
    "Macarthur Wind Farm Update". AGL. October 2012. Archived from the original on 19 April 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2013.
  7. [7]
    "Meridian sells its share in Macarthur wind farm" (Press release). Meridian Energy. 28 June 2013.
  8. [8]
    "Malaysia's Malakoff Buys Stake in Australian Wind Farm". Wall Street Journal. 28 June 2013.
  9. [9]
    "AGL sells Macarthur Wind Farm stake" (Press release). The Australian. 8 September 2015.
  10. [10]
    "Macarthur Wind Farm, Australia". Power-technology.com.
  11. [11]
    Parkinson, Giles (11 August 2017). "Australia's biggest wind farm is also its least productive". RenewEconomy. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
  12. [12]
    "AGL completes the sale of Macarthur Wind Farm". AGL. 7 September 2015. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
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