Saturday 8/12/2007 Page: 5
THE largest proposed wind farm in Australia - the 183-turbine, $600 million behemoth between Macarthur and Hawkesdale - has sprung into life. Since the wind farm was given State Government planning approval last October, news about its progress had been virtually non-existent. The then developer, Southern Hydro (later bought out by AGL Energy), said it would take up to 12 months to investigate the financing of the huge project.
On Thursday, AGL told the Australian Stock Exchange that New Zealand's largest generator of electricity, Meridan Energy, had joined its Macarthur project. "The heads of agreement with Meridan Energy will bring together the key skills of both parties to determine the most favourable final generating capacity of the project," AGL managing director, Michael Fraser, said. He said the Macarthur site was one of the 'premier wind generation sites in Australia'. The wind farm would generate up to 450 megawatts - enough clean energy capacity to power about 250,000 average homes.
- Meridan Energy develops, owns and operates wind farms throughout New Zealand as well as nine hydro power stations.
"If the Macarthur Wind Farm is built, AGL's renewable generation portfolio will extend to well in excess of 1000MW - Australia's largest privately owned and operated renewable portfolio." Mr Fraser said Australia had a strong emerging retail demand for clean and low carbon emission energy and AGL was strategically positioned as a cost competitive supplier to this market.
If the wind farm proceeds it's expected to create 600- 900 jobs in construction and manufacturing over its two-year construction period. The turbines would be spread across 55 square kilometres of predominantly cleared farm land mid-way between Macarthur and Hawkesdale. A three-member panel sat for five weeks in Hamilton last February- March to hear submissions for and against the wind farm. There were 1295 submissions - with 88 per cent in support.
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