Visit to the MacIntyre Wind Farm

Several GBSAN members went along with about 50 people from local environmental groups to visit the new wind farm going up in our region last weekend, south west of Warwick Qld.

The wind farm is owned by Acciona Energia, a Spanish privately owned company. The turbines are expected to operate for at least 30 years and then be refurbished and probably operate a similar time after.

There are 200 turbines planned, 50 installed so far, with an output of 5.8MW each. The turbines get constructed first and then all the electricals will get connected underground. Construction started last year and they should go live to the grid at the end of 2024.

If conditions are right, a new turbine can be erected in two days. The towers are 150 metres high and each blade 80 metres (an A380 plane could fit on one blade). The turbines can produce their maximum output with as little a 4m/s wind (14.4km/h).

This will be the biggest wind farm in the southern hemisphere, and then they will double it with a second wind farm a similar size slightly west in the Gore region towards Goondiwindi, (after this project is complete). These 200 turbines will be able to power around 700000 homes (about 1/3 of the homes in Qld).

The government is installing large powerlines to connect the farm to the Qld grid. This area is also part of a new renewable energy zone.

The land the turbines is on is sheep country, traprock region. There are a small number of landholders as they are very big stations. Landholders get paid an annual fee per turbine on their land. They use different blades closer to homes that are quieter, but it's still less than the sound of a fridge in the room.

Acciona engaged first nations people to go through every area of land that was being disturbed and find and preserve artefacts, and they have also done the same with plant and animal assessments - even moving 10000 of an endangered plant to a different location, Macrozamia conferta (listed as vulnerable under the Federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the state Nature Conservation Act). Once the turbines are active they will restore most areas aside from the roads and access points to what vegetation there was before (at the moment the roads are really wide for the turbine access).