Wind farm on line

Eyre Peninsula Tribune

Wednesday, 8 March 2006

Power from the Mt Millar Wind Farm, between Cleve and Cowell, started being delivered into South Australia's homes and businesses last Tuesday, February 28.

The first of the 35 wind turbines at the farm began generating power on Tuesday morning and the remainder of the turbines will be gradually brought on line as commissioning progresses.

Tarong Energy project manager Nic Buckley said Tuesday represented a significant milestone in the short history of the wind farm.

He said Tarong Energy, as the parent company of the Mount Millar Wind Farm, was pleased that commissioning had begun.

"This is an important and exciting step, and once complete, the Mt Millar Wind Farm will complement Tarong's other wind farm in South Australia, the 34.5MW Starfish Hill wind farm, which was completed in December 2003," he said.

Construction work on the Mt Millar Wind Farm project by the German firm Enercon GmbH, began late in 2004 and was completed in December last year.

It is expected that, once fully operational, 70 megawatts of electricity will be generated from the wind turbines, enough for about 36,000 typical households.

The wind farm will reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by up to 4.2 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent during its expected 25-year life.

Electricity from the wind farm is exported into the South Australian transmission grid at the Yadnarie substation, 10 kilometres west of Cleve, via a new 132kV overhead transmission line, which is owned and operated by ElectraNet SA.