Waterloo wind farm is east of
Manoora,
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 ...
. It is the largest wind farm operated by
EnergyAustralia
EnergyAustralia (formerly TRUenergy) is an electricity generation, electricity and gas retailing private company in Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based and listed China Light and Power (CLP Group). EnergyAustralia also ...
.
Site
The wind farm is positioned along a rocky north–south ridge on privately owned property at
Waterloo
Waterloo most commonly refers to:
* Battle of Waterloo, a battle on 18 June 1815 in which Napoleon met his final defeat
* Waterloo, Belgium, where the battle took place.
Waterloo may also refer to:
Other places
Antarctica
*King George Island (S ...
.
The 111 megawatt
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 ...
spreads across five acres of land and cost about $350 million, it began construction in November, 2008 and has been operational since October 2010.
For about two months in 2013, the site was monitored by the Environmental Protection Authority. The wind farm's infrasound and low-frequency noise were both examined.
Acoustics firm Resonate conducted noise and meteorological monitoring in the area.
Turbines
Waterloo wind farm opened with 37 Vestas V90-3MW
turbines
A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful Work (physics), work. The work produced by a turbine can be used ...
,
each 80 metres high, with each turbine blade 44 metres long and weighing about 8 tonnes. The tower sections weigh approximately 90 tonnes in total with the tower and blades combined weighing 125 tonnes. On average the blades turn at 16.2 rpm. There are four levels in a turbine and it takes about five minutes to get to the top.
Each wind turbine produces on average 24
megawatt hour
A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...
s of electricity each day. On a windy day three wind turbines can power the whole of Clare and the whole wind farm can power up to 163,000 homes or 5 to 10% of South Australia.
The wind farm was expanded with six additional Vestas V117 turbines in 2016 at a cost of .
See also
*
List of wind farms in South Australia
This is a list of wind farms in South Australia. As of 2022, South Australia has 16 operating wind farms with a total installed capacity of about 2,139 MW. Prior to 2003, a 150 kW unit at Coober Pedy was the only large wind turbine in South ...
*
Wind power in South Australia
Wind power became a significant energy source within South Australia over the first two decades of the 21st century. In 2015, there was an installed capacity of 1,475 MW, which accounted for 34% of electricity production in the state. This acco ...
References
Wind farms in South Australia
2010 establishments in Australia
Energy infrastructure completed in 2010
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