Australia’s biggest wind farm enters grid management system after delays and cancellations

The 923 megawatt MacIntyre wind project in Queensland, which will – at least for a short time – be the biggest wind farm in Australia once fully operating, has finally obtained its registration and entered the market operator’s grid management system.

The milestone was noted this week by Geoff Eldridge, from energy analysts GPE NEMLog, and comes more than two years after the huge $2 billion project, near Warwick, began construction.

The MacIntyre project, being built by Spanish company Acciona Energía, was to be sized at 1,026 MW, but one component – the 103 MW Karara wind farm – was cancelled by the state-owned CleanCo because of delays and cost increases.

The registration and grid management milestone means that the MacIntyre project can now begin testing and move through various “hold points” and gradually ramp up production towards its full capacity. That process could take six months or more, although some smaller projects have achieved it in quicker time.

The registration comes just over a week after MacIntyre’s rival for the “biggest wind farm” title in Australia – the Golden Plains wind project in Victoria – was entered into the grid management system, even though it began construction nearly a year later.

The first stage of that project is sized at 756 MW, and Golden Plains will have to wait until its second stage is complete and its full capacity is lifted to 1,333 MW to assume the “biggest wind project” title.

MacIntyre could then take that title back should it go ahead with the Herries wind farm which is part of the Macintyre precinct that will double its capacity to 2 GW.

There are a number of new project proposals sized at 1.4 GW or more, particularly in south-west NSW which could also compete for the title, depending on when they are built.

A five GW wind project has been newly unveiled near Hughenden in the far north of Queensland, but it will take till the end of the decade before its planned 2 GW first stage is built, and it could be several more years before the rest of the capacity is delivered, if it ever is given the anticipated competition for grid access in the area.

The addition of the MacIntyre wind project will nearly double the available wind capacity in Queensland, likely propelling the generation share of wind in that state to around 10 per cent.

Queensland currently trails other states with the lowest share of renewables at around 29 per cent over the past year, although it has targets of a 50 per cent renewable share by 2030 and an 80 per cent renewable share by 2035.