Australia's largest windfarm working

Circular Head Chronicle
Wednesday 28/2/2007 Page: 5

THE ALMOST completed Studland Bay windfarm at Woolnorth began generating electricity on Monday.

"We've got 20 of the 25 turbines fully erected and we are now commissioning the 20 that we've got erected," said Roaring 40s senior project manager Michael Gilmore. At the moment we have three that are fully operational." A fourth turbine will be commissioned today, with the aim have one more turbine operational each day.

"We are actually producing clean, green electricity for the Tasmanian grid from this new windfarm. We're targeting for the end of March to have them all fully operational," Mr Gilmore said.

"That will be 75 megawatts, which is in rough terms is enough to do somewhere around 40,000 houses." After the work is completed the farm enters its operational and maintenance phase. Four people will be permanently employed on the site to maintain the facility. "The turbines themselves are all state of the art, we have to do a number maintenance runs a year," Mr Gilmore said.

Workers walked onto the site on January 9, 2006, so the project has taken just over a year to complete. Mr Gilmore said this was making good time, considering strong winds over the past few months halted construction at times.

"That's just over a year from a greenfield paddock to a completed windfarm," he said. "That's quite good time. When you consider the weather, the wind has a major effect." Mr Gilmore said overall, the company and the workforce has enjoyed working in Circular Head. Visiting workers have made friends locally and local businesses have been supportive.

"It's always a pleasure to work in rural Australia. We obviously do all of our work in rural areas. The people are terrific. "We've been working in Smithton now since 2000 and we've built up great relationships with the local community," he said.

When added to the stage one development of Woolnorth, Bluff Point, Roaring 40s' wind energy installation in Circular Head will be the largest wind farm in Australia, at 140 megawatts in total. In addition to this, the 3MW wind turbine generators being utilised at Studland Bay are the largest in the southern hemisphere.