The Lincoln Gap 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 to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turb ...

in the vicinity of Lincoln Gap on northeastern

Eyre Peninsula The Eyre Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in South Australia. It is bounded by the Spencer Gulf on the east, the Great Australian Bight on the west, and the Gawler Ranges to the north. Originally called Eyre’s Peninsula, it was named af ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, Australia. It consists of 59

wind turbine 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 yea ...

s and generates a total of 212 MW of electricity. Construction began in late 2017 and was initially expected to be commissioned in late 2018. Construction was delayed in July 2018 when unexploded ordnance was discovered on the site, left from historic military testing. The site is not far from the Cultana Training Area. Following Senvion's European parent company commencing insolvency proceedings, Vestas was engaged to provide maintenance services for the 126 MW first stage, and the 24 3.6 MW turbines for the second stage. The 212 MW wind farm reached full generation capacity in late April 2022.

Construction and commissioning

The wind farm was constructed by

Senvion Senvion S.A. (called REpower Systems SE until 2014) was a German wind turbine manufacturer founded in 2001 in Germany, majority owned by a private equity firm. Senvion as REpower Systems, as it was initially called, was established in 2001 th ...

in two stages. The first stage was 35 turbines. In December 2018, it was expected to be operational by July 2019. Stage Two for the final 24 turbines received financial approval from Nexif Energy in December 2018. A 10 MW / 10 MW·h battery was expected to be completed in May 2019 by

Fluence In radiometry, radiant exposure or fluence is the radiant energy ''received'' by a ''surface'' per unit area, or equivalently the irradiance of a ''surface,'' integrated over time of irradiation, and spectral exposure is the radiant exposure per un ...

, with a proposal to later upgrade it to 30 MW. The output is contracted to retailer

ERM Power Shell Energy Australia provides gas, electricity, environmental products and energy productivity services to commercial and industrial customers. History ERM Power was founded by Trevor St Baker as a specialist Australian energy advis ...

. Some of the towers and turbines were erected using a

tower crane A crane is a type of machine, generally equipped with a hoist rope, wire ropes or chains, and sheaves, that can be used both to lift and lower materials and to move them horizontally. It is mainly used for lifting heavy objects and transpor ...

similar to what is used to construct high-rise buildings. The wind farm substation was connected to the national electricity grid on 25 February 2019. The energy storage battery was expected to be installed by the end of May 2019, with wind turbines commissioned from August 2019. The first turbine exported electricity to the grid in the last few days of April 2019. It was reported in October 2020 that construction of Stage 2 had begun, at a cost of A$170m. It was completed and reached full operation (without the battery) in late April 2022.

References

{{Wind farms in Australia Wind farms in South Australia Eyre Peninsula Far North (South Australia)