Ashurst advises General Electric on Australia’s largest wind farm at Coopers Gap

PRESS RELEASE

Ashurst has advised General Electric (GE) in its negotiations with the Powering Australian Renewables Fund (PARF) to supply, install and operate 123 wind turbines at Coopers Gap Wind Farm, to be located near Cooranga North in Queensland. PARF is a partnership between AGL Energy Limited (20 per cent) and Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) (80 per cent, on behalf of clients the Future Fund and the QIC Global Infrastructure Fund).

The Coopers Gap Wind Farm will be the largest wind farm in Australia and GE’s first wind farm in Queensland. Upon completion, it will have a capacity of 453MW, generating enough power to provide more than 260,000 homes with clean energy.

Together with construction and civil engineering company Catcon, GE will act as an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor by delivering 91 of the Coopers Gap Wind Farm’s 3.6MW turbines with 137m rotors, and 32 of its 3.8MW turbines with 130m rotors. GE is also undertaking an operation & maintenance (O&M) 25-year full service agreement to maintain the wind farm over its lifetime. Catcon will construct the wind farm, with an expected completion date in 2019.

Lead partner Gareth Sage (Corporate) said: “It was a pleasure to assist GE as EPC contractor and O&M contractor on the Coopers Gap Wind Farm. The project demonstrates Ashurst’s expertise in complex renewable energy projects, while reinforcing GE’s footprint as a leading power producer within the renewables sector.”

Gareth was assisted by foreign senior associate Tamsyn Zulch (Corporate) with partner Caroline Ammundsen, senior associate Paul Wilson and lawyer Amaya Fernandez (Resources & Utilities).