Waterloo Wind Farm – from site identification to operation
Client: Hydro Tasmania / Roaring 40s
Location: South Australia, Australia
Date: 2002 - 2011
Developing a wind farm from site identification through to operation, adding valuable renewable energy generation capacity.
Background
The Waterloo Wind Farm is located near Clare in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. It is on an inland site along an elevated ridgeline. The wind farm consists of 37 Vestas V90 3 MW wind turbines in clusters along this ridge, with a generating capacity of 111 MW. The wind farm is connected to the Robertstown substation via a 25 km 132 kV transmission line, adding valuable, renewable wind energy to the National Electricity Market.
Solution
Entura completed the technical and financial feasibility analysis, including wind data collection, long-term wind resource assessment and wind farm energy estimates for the business case.
Entura prepared detailed design for the project including civil, electrical, and wind engineering through the feasibility and pre-construction stages of the project. Entura also managed the EIA (environmental impact assessment) and the development approval for the project.
Public consultation is a critical aspect of wind farm development and Entura provided a tailored consultation program suitable for the project to facilitate project awareness and acceptability amongst the community and landowners.
The wind farm footprint was designed to minimise native vegetation clearance, as all clearance required native vegetation offsets to be signed up with nearby land-owners to satisfy the Heritage Council.
During the early stages of operation, Entura was involved with preliminary assessments of operational performance for the wind farm on behalf of the client, in particular, undertaking a preliminary power curve verification for selected wind turbines.
Outcome
During the feasibility design, Entura took a whole-of-project approach to the wind farm design, balancing issues associated with native vegetation, ease and cost of construction, satisfying wind turbine design limits and noise impacts whilst maximising energy output.
The Waterloo Wind Farm has been fully operational since October 2010.
