GE today announced an agreement with the Powering Australian Renewables Fund to supply and install 123 wind turbines for the Coopers Gap wind farm project at Cooranga North, 250km north-west of Brisbane.
PARF is a partnership between AGL Energy Limited (20%) and Queensland Investment Corporation (80% on behalf of clients the Future Fund and the QIC Global Infrastructure Fund).
Upon completion in 2019, the 453MW wind farm will produce about 1,510,000MWh of renewable energy a year – enough to power the equivalent of more than 260,000 average Australian homes and reduce CO2 emissions by 1,180,000 tonnes each year.
Coopers Gap will be the largest wind farm in Australia on completion, and GE’s first wind project in Queensland.
GE and AGL also announced the Silverton Wind Farm in western NSW this year.
GE will deliver 91 of its 3.6MW turbines with 137m rotors and 32 of its 3.8MW turbines with 130m rotors.
More than 800MW of projects have been vended into PARF in its first 12 months of operation, said AGL managing director Andy Vesey, including the Silverton wind farm and Nyngan and Broken Hill solar plants in NSW.
“Certainty on energy policy, including the implementation of the recommendations of the Finkel Review, will enable more projects of this kind to go ahead and help place downward pressure on energy prices by increasing supply,” Vesey said.
The project is expected to create up to 200 jobs during the peak of construction and 20 operational jobs. CATCON will be responsible for construction.
Pete McCabe, president and CEO of GE Renewable Energy’s Onshore Wind business, said: “Australia is a great market for wind. After the US, it is GE’s second largest region globally for renewable energy. While we see lots of opportunities in Australia, we need to continue to have policy certainty to drive investment.”
The Coopers Gap development is GE’s fifth wind farm project to begin construction in Australia in 2017. On completion in 2019, GE will be responsible for a fleet of wind turbines with a capacity of almost 1.4 GW.