As Australia’s biggest wind farm becomes the first in the country to pass the gigawatt-output mark, it is worth remembering that not all wind projects go according to plan.
The Golden Plains wind farm in Victoria, as Renew Economy editor Sophie Vorrath reported on Friday, reached the 1 GW output mark last week as commissioning continues on the second stage of its 1.33 gigawatt (GW) project.
But the TagEnergy project wasn’t supposed to be the first 1 GW wind farm in Australia. In May, 2022, Spanish energy giant announced it had begun construction of what was then described as the 1.026 GW Macintyre wind precinct in Queensland.
It had already suffered delays from Covid and supply constraints, but it was downsized back to 923 megawatts (MW) in 2023 after partner CleanCo decided to pull its commitment to the 103 MW Karara component, citing high costs and delays.
The remaining 923 MW component, however, has been overtaken by Golden Plains (which started construction in early 2023) and has been hit by a number of issues, particularly with the blades on the 5.7 MW turbines provided by Nordex, the German manufacturer partly owned by Acciona.
