Coastal energy boom in the wind

Adelaide Advertiser
Tuesday 16/2/2010 Page: 37

MACQUARIE Capital states preliminary assessments are positive for wind and grid connection capabilities at its proposed $1 billion windfarm at Robe. The result offers more certainty to the project, tipped to transform one of South Australia's coastal tourism hot spots into a wind-energy hub. The renewables sector investor will set up wind monitoring masts at the site to prove resource and conduct other studies over the next 12 months, Macquarie Capital Advisers' division director Ian Kay says. "We have conducted preliminary assessment of wind and grid connection capabilities and they are positive. The next step is to get into detailed wind monitoring and grid connection studies," Mr Kay said.

"We'll typically take about 12 to 18 months to get the relevant approvals and prove the resource, and following that we'll go through the tender process." Macquarie Capital committed to the project in late December, signing land lease agreements with Robe Wind Pty Ltd, a company set up by the 35 landowners of the site. The proposed 600MW windfarm is estimated to have a capital cost of more than $1 billion. It would be the group's first windfarm in SA, although it advised on the AGL Energy Hallett Cove wind farms.

About 300 turbines are likely to be set up along the Woakwine range between Beachport and Mt Benson, generating sufficient energy to power about 260,000 homes. Macquarie also has its sights set on other opportunities locally and nationally, with interests in the Silverton windfarm in New South Wales. "We are generally interested in infrastructure and renewable energy is an important component of it," Mr Kay said. The Robe project is a significant opportunity for the local community and South Australia's renewable energy sector, Robe Wind chairman Michael McCourt said. "We've leased our farms to them and they are going to start straight away," he said.

Infigen Energy also has landowner agreements in place for its 400-500MW WoakWine windfarm project from Cape Jaffa to Beachport. Together, these two projects could rival Australia's largest windfarm development near Broken Hill, being built by Epuron for about $2 billion. SA has the nation's highest installed capacity of wind generation, with nine wind farms and 5000MW of proposed projects. The wind energy share of energy in SA is projected to rise from 14% in 2008-09 to 34.1% by 2018-19. KPMG Econtech forecasts SA will have 2132MW of wind energy in 10 years.