Late last year, SEA won two contracts, totalling just under 200 megawatt (MW) of capacity. In early November 2007, AGL Energy awarded an $166 million engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the 71 MW Hallett Hill wind farm to SEA. Only a few weeks later, SEA won an EPC contract with Sydney-based Renewable Power Ventures (RPV) for the delivery of the 132 MW Capital Wind Farm in New South Wales.

SEA Chief Operations Officer, Chris Judd, is definitely pleased and perhaps still a little amazed with the company’s growth in just over three years. SEA has grown from a start up operation of six people in 2005, which as Mr Judd puts it, was aiming to remain lean to ride the peaks and troughs of the industry. They are now a group of over 50. The company’s five year plan was to have 600 MW of new projects under its belt, but with that target well and truly in sight the company now has to reset the bar and aim higher.

Reflecting on how far SEA and the industry has come in recent years, Mr Judd says the outlook for the industry has changed dramatically since the company’s entry into the Australian market in July 2004.

“We setup in the industry at its worst point. We went up to the Auswind (now part of the Clean Energy Council) industry conference in Manly, Sydney, in 2005 and it was all doom and gloom and the industry was shutting up shop and everyone was talking about moving out of the region because there was no stimulus for the industry.”

This has all changed in the last few years, particularly in the last six months, says Mr Judd. The winds of change, so to speak, were turning at the 2006 conference in Adelaide, with talk of state-based incentives similar to mandatory renewable energy target. The feel at the 2007 conference in Melbourne was much more positive, reflecting an industry that has become very active. The schemes, explains Mr Judd, have helped unlock a backlog of projects that were at various stages of development but that without the schemes were not economically feasible to progress to construction.

Having said this, Mr Judd isn’t too fussed whether the renewable enrgy target is a national or state-based scheme. For SEA, all that has mattered is that schemes are there driving development and investment in the industry.

“From my perspective, I’m constructing a project, I’m not trying to work out what rebate scheme I need to work into the financial analysis,” he says.

“I’m just glad that the rebate schemes are there to basically drive the industry,” he adds. “I don’t mind where the wind farms are, so long as there’s a developer out there who, with the RET schemes in place, determines that a wind farm is economically viable – I’m happy to build it.”

Speaking with Mr Judd, SEA’s excitement about the two new projects is clear. Hallett Hill is SEA’s second project with AGL in South Australia. It’s first, Hallett, is currently progressing well, where 45 S88 – 2 MW wind turbines will see an installed capacity of 94.5 MW.

The proposed 34 turbine, Hallett Hill wind farm is sited 170 km north of Adelaide, close to the township of Mount Bryan and could enter commercial operation in the second half of 2009. Meanwhile, SEA’s second project, the 47 Suzlon S88 – 2.1 MW Snowtown Windfarm in South Australia for TrustPower, a New Zealand utility, is progressing very well and ahead of targets.

“It is a joy to be involved in a project where our time is being spent determining how we can achieve outcomes that exceed the original project objectives,” says Mr Judd.

Moving forward, the Capital Wind Farm will see 63 Suzlon S88 – 2.1 MW wind turbines installed, translating to 132 MW of capacity, north of Canberra. The contract includes full turnkey delivery including a 330 kV electrical substation and power line works and is scheduled for completion in the first half of 2009.

With a full load on their plate, what is the key to SEA’s success? Mr Judd says part of the answer might be SEA’s relationship with its parent company. Founded in India in 1995, Suzlon Energy is the world’s fifth largest manufacturer in the wind sector and growing. Company founder and Chairman & Managing Director, Tulsi R Tanti, has recently been named as one of the ‘Heroes of the Environment’ in Time magazine, alongside environmental giants such as Nobel laureate, Al Gore.

All of Suzlon’s turbines are manufactured overseas and R&D is based in Germany but Mr Judd says SEA works closely with its parent to develop the best turbines for the Australian market and meet the rigorous compliance standards here.

As for SEA’s independence from the parent company, Mr Judd says that while there are some “checks and balances” with the powers that be, SEA’s ability to work fairly independently in Australia gives it an edge over its competitors.

He explains “That’s actually one of our strengths, that we do make a lot of our core decisions here, we have a strong management team here in Australia. We don’t get someone from Amsterdam and Denmark to fly in and do a negotiation for us and seal the deal for us.”

“So we maximise our knowledge of the Australian marketplace and avoid cultural misunderstandings and misinterpretation. And that,” says Mr Judd cautiously, “is probably a significant factor in securing the four projects that are on our books; we’ve basically been the most successful operator here in the last three years.”

SEA’s relationship with AGL is a testament to this. Mr Judd says that the companies had to work particularly closely during the testing phase of the first turbine.

“The discussions obviously get quite technical as the turbine goes through rigorous testing and design tweaking and within a set 12 month timeframe.”

This testing period of SEA’s first Australian turbine was a significant project in itself and one of the biggest challenges the company has faced, says Mr Judd. But its success has been groundbreaking for the company.

“That (test) turbine has been installed since March this year and been performing absolutely great – really high availability and very few issues with its performance and it has met the power curve that it needed to,” says Mr Judd. “SEA has learnt a lot through the process and the turbine’s success has won a lot of confidence from AGL and proved that that SEA is a company that is client focussed and knows what it is doing.”

SEA’s relationships with the local communities and councils around the wind farms are all good, with the community eager to have the projects underway to stimulate the economy and drive employment opportunities in the areas.

“Our relationships with the communities are fantastic,” says Mr Judd. “They just can’t wait to have the team in place, can’t wait for the construction to unfold and have money injected into the communities and to have local labour to help build the project and provide services such as catering and accommodation.”

On a wider scale, Mr Judd is optimistic, yet realistic about the role of wind in Australia’s energy future. He believes the wind industry is heading for a great time, for the next 13 to 15 years, to 2020 and potentially beyond.

“Wind is a ready-made, economically-viable solution,” he says. “For that reason, coupled with a growing public awareness of climate change, there has been a renewed interest in wind as an alternate to the likes of nuclear or solar. There is an appreciation that wind, whilst it’s not everyone’s cup of tea with the visual aspects or otherwise, has got majority endorsement.”

But with so much space and opportunity for renewable energy generation, wind is not the only answer, says Mr Judd.

“Wind is never going to be the full solution but it’s going to be a significant part of future generation in Australia, I expect.”

He sees the future as a continuing contest between coal and alternative sources of energy.

“It’s between those two,” he says. “And I think maybe people actually need to see a track record to just see how wind farms are operating successfully to appreciate the business. So they know it’s not a bunch of cowboys putting up turbines that don’t know what they’re doing. It’s actually a maturing industry, it’s a new industry but it is quite mature globally and it is actually a real solution.”

Education, says Mr Judd, is a key driver for the industry and growing public awareness and understanding about the environmental issues we all face to lead Australia towards a lower emissions future.

Reflecting on the changes he’s noticed in attitudes towards climate change, Mr Judd says the most interesting thing he’s noticed is the diversity of people who have an opinion.

“I haven’t come across anyone yet who doesn’t support the wind industry or who has real issues with what we’re doing.”

Mr Judd and SEA’s site managers proactively promote the benefits of the wind industry. And while it might be by default, by virtue of sharing his name with an AFL footballer, Mr Judd seems to have an upper hand in educating Australia’s youth about wind energy – although he says kids are sometimes disappointed when he turns up at their school to talk about wind farms instead of Australian Rules football!

But perhaps in time, Australians will come to recognise the heroes of the environment as well as our sports stars. In its few years in the Australian wind industry, SEA has come a long way and the future is certainly promising.

“I guess,” says Mr Judd says modestly, “We are responding to our order book and we’re definitely heading down the path of being a bigger organisation and a more capable organisation.”

The challenge for SEA now is to keep up with the company’s growth, resource its projects well and deliver them successfully.