Wind Farms
As of October 2010, there were 52 wind farms of greater than 100 kW capacity operating in Australia. The Waubra Wind Farm near Ballarat, Victoria, completed in 2009, was the largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere, consisting of 128 turbines spread over 173 km2 and rated at 192 MW, however in terms of generating capacity Lake Bonney Wind Farm near Millicent, South Australia was the largest with 239.5 MW, despite only having 99 turbines. These figures were set to be surpassed by the Macarthur Wind Farm at Macarthur, Victoria, scheduled to open in 2013 with a capacity of 420 MW.
By generating capacity, the eleven largest wind farms in Australia were:
| No. | Project | State | Capacity (MW) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lake Bonney Wind Farm | South Australia | 240 |
| 2 | Collgar Wind Farm | Western Australia | 204 |
| 3 | Portland Wind Farm | Victoria | 195 |
| 4 | Waubra Wind Farm | Victoria | 192 |
| 5 | Hallett Wind Farm | South Australia | 166 |
| 6 | Capital Wind Farm | New South Wales | 140.7 |
| 7 | Woolnorth Wind Farm | Tasmania | 140 |
| 8 | Snowtown Wind Farm | South Australia | 99 |
| 9 | Wattle Point Wind Farm | South Australia | 91 |
| 10 | Walkaway Wind Farm | Western Australia | 90 |
| 11 | Emu Downs Wind Farm | Western Australia | 80 |
Australia's first commercial wind farm, Salmon Beach Wind Farm near Esperance in Western Australia operated for 15 years from 1987, but was decommissioned due to urban encroachment; it has been replaced by Ten Mile Lagoon Wind Farm and Nine Mile Beach Wind Farm. In August 2009, The Age newspaper reported that the first of three new large-scale wind farming projects to offset Australia's power-hungry desalination plants would be going ahead.
Read more about this topic: Wind Power In Australia
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