ACCIONA Builds Gigawatt Wind Farm in Australia

The project will boost the decarbonisation strategy of the local government of Queensland and unlock investments totalling AU$1.96 billion (1 billion euros). Most of the investment will be made between 2022 and 2023.

ACCIONA has also entered into an agreement with CleanCo, a renewable energy producer of the Queensland Government, to become the independent owner and operator of a 100 MW wind farm within the MacIntyre Complex. In addition, CleanCo will acquire the annual production of 400 MW from ACCIONA's facilities for ten years through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). ACCIONA is currently negotiating additional supply agreements with residential customers and the potential participation of other investors for its 926 MW of capacity within the MacIntyre Complex.

Construction of the project is scheduled to start in mid 2021, with phased commissioning in several phases to ensure the connection of the state-owned power system to the grid while optimizing return on investment. About 64 km of transmission lines will be laid to connect the wind complex to the grid. The entire MacIntyre Complex is scheduled to be fully operational by 2024.

MacIntyre's 1,026 MW of capacity will generate clean electricity to power approximately 700,000 homes and avoid the emission of nearly 3 million tons of CO2 per year. By greening Queensland's power mix, the MacIntyre wind complex will help the state meet its decarbonisation commitments and climate change mitigation strategies. The scale of the MacIntyre project makes it one of the largest onshore wind farms in the world - and that in a country whose government is still considered a great champion of coal-fired power. This in turn has led to individual states in Australia taking decarbonisation into their own hands and pushing forward renewable energy projects without the support of the overall government.

The wind farm will comprise 180 Delta4000 turbines from the Nordex Group, each with a capacity of up to 5.7 MW, which represent the latest generation of turbines from the German manufacturer.