The Macarthur Wind Farm is a

wind farm A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used Wind power, to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundre ...

located in

Macarthur, Victoria Macarthur () originally known as Eumeralla, is a town in the Western District of Victoria, Australia on the Hamilton-Port Fairy Road. It is in the Shire of Moyne local government area and the federal Division of Wannon. At the 2016 census, Mac ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, near

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: People * Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname ** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland ** Lord Hamilt ...

, 260 km west of Melbourne. It is on a 5,500 ha site which has an installed capacity of 420

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units, International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), ...

s (MW). Based on a

capacity factor The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is de ...

of around 35%, it is estimated that the long-term average generation will be approximately 1,250 GWh per year. Its actual capacity factor is much lower, with a historical average of 26.29% since 2013. It is the largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere generating enough power for 220,000 homes and abating 1.7 million tons of

greenhouse gas A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbs and Emission (electromagnetic radiation), emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse ...

es annually, at a capacity factor of 35%. The wind farm comprises 140

Vestas Vestas Wind Systems A/S is a Danish manufacturer, seller, installer, and servicer of wind turbines that was founded in 1945. The company operates manufacturing plants in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, India, Italy, Romania, the Uni ...

V112-3.0MW

wind turbines A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...

manufactured in Denmark. The project cost about A$1 billion and was fully operational in January 2013. It was constructed by Vestas and

Leighton Contractors CIMIC Group Limited (formerly Leighton Holdings) is an Australian construction contractor. It is active in the telecommunications, engineering and infrastructure, building and property, mining and resources, and environmental services industries ...

. The first turbines were connected to the grid in September 2012. AGL also invested an additional $27m in the substation, which is completely owned by the company.

History

The project was proposed in 2004 and approved by the Victorian government in October 2006. The project was developed by a joint venture formed by

AGL Energy AGL Energy Ltd () is an Australian listed public company involved in both the generation and retailing of electricity and gas for residential and commercial use. AGL is Australia's largest electricity generator, and the nation's largest carbo ...

and

Meridian Energy Meridian Energy Limited is a New Zealand electricity generator and retailer. The company generates the largest proportion of New Zealand's electricity, generating 35 percent of the country's electricity in the year ending December 2014, and is ...

, a New Zealand-based power generating company, with works starting in 2010. The project was fully operational in January 2013. In 2013, Meridian sold its 50% share in the wind farm to Malaysian power company Malakoff Corporation Berhad for A$650 million. In September 2015, AGL Energy sold its 50% stake in the wind farm to H. R. L. Morrison & Co for $532m. AGL Energy will operate and maintain the wind farm in place of Morrison & Co and Malakoff. It also reserves the rights to all renewable energy certificates and electricity production until 2038.

Operations

The wind farm registered its first grid output in September 2012 and reached full output in March 2013. The generation table use
eljmkt nemlog
to obtain generation values for each month. The URL must be formatted as: "http://nemlog.com.au/show/unit/YYYYMMDD/YYYYMMDD/?k1=GENCODE" Macarthur's code is MACARTH1, so that is used. Note: Asterisk indicates power output was limited during the month.

Performance

Macarthur has consistently been one of the worst performing wind farms since its construction in 2012. It was intended to have a capacity factor around 34% and generate 1240 GWh of energy per annum. However, the most the farm has generated was 1081 GWh in 2013, and has consistently averaged around 994 GWh, which corresponds to a capacity factor of 27%.

References

External links

Macarthur Wind Farm
- AGL website * {{Wind farms in Australia Wind farms in Victoria (Australia)

History

Operations

Performance

See also

References

External links