Australia’s largest operating wind farm sends first power to Sunshine State grid

The largest operating wind farm in Australia, the 923 megawatt (MW) MacIntyre project in south-western Queensland, has marked a significant milestone, with the first export of renewable energy to the national electricity market announced on Friday.

Located in the Southern Downs outside Warwick, the MacIntyre wind farm has connected 27 wind turbines to the grid that will begin powering Queensland over the course of October, with exports progressively ramping up as the project progresses.

Wind farm majority owner and operator Acciona Energia says another batch of 27 turbines are expected to be exporting energy by Christmas. Once fully operational, in the second half of 2025, the 162 turbine project will almost double the total amount of wind generation capacity in Queensland.

MacIntyre wind farm is neck-and-neck with Victoria’s 1,330 MW Golden Plains wind farm as the biggest in Australia, with MacIntyre taking the title of biggest in operation – for now. Both have been injecting small amounts to the grid in recent weeks, although Golden Plains now appears to be further advanced in its commissioning process.

MacIntyre will ultimately be joined by the Herries Range Wind Farm – first unveiled in late 2022 – which will more than double the size of the “Big Mac” wind precinct to around 2GW – enough to power the equivalent of more than a million homes.

“Today marks a significant milestone for Australia’s diversification of its energy sources with the southern hemisphere’s largest operating wind farm now generating renewable energy,” said Acciona managing director Brett Wickham on Friday.

The MacIntyre wind farm is a joint-venture between Acciona Energia and Ark Energy, a subsidiary of Korea Zinc, which will use some of project’s power to support its sister company, Sun Metals and the Townsville refinery’s decarbonisation plans.

“Decarbonising industry and producing green metals will also put Sun Metals, and Queensland and Australia’s metal exports, at a significant competitive advantage internationally,” said said Ark Energy CEO Michael Choi.

The huge wind farm also has offtake agreements with the Queensland government owned Stanwell Corporation and CleanCo totalling 550MW. CleanCo had opted to build its own 103 MW wind farm – Karara – within the MacIntyre precinct, but withdrew that plan citing grid connection issues and delays.

“Major projects such as the MacIntyre Wind Farm will make a material contribution to decarbonising Queensland’s energy consumption, particularly in hard-to-abate industrial sectors,’’ Wickham said.

“Helping large industrial and commercial energy users to decarbonise supports these important industries to stay in Australia.

“From concreters to caterers, we have sourced more than $115 million in work and services from more than 80 businesses in and around the Darling Downs region and hired hundreds of local workers.”