Australia’s oldest commercial wind farm to close as cost of repowering is too high

In a first clue as to what might be the future for some ageing wind farms sites, renewable energy company Pacific Blue says it will not repower the country’s oldest commercial wind farm at Codrington in Victoria.

The 18.2 megawatt (MW) Codrington wind farm was commissioned in 2001 and will be decommissioned in 2027, a Pacific Blue spokesperson told Renew Economy on Monday.

Despite an enviable location near Port Fairy in southwest Victoria, which benefited from the same southern ocean winds that drew the federal government to the offshore Southern Wind zone, repowering the site will be too expensive, the company says. 

“At this stage, Pacific Blue is not pursuing a repowering option for Codrington, as the site’s grid connection would require significant upgrades and today’s turbine siting requirements would preclude the installation of latest generation turbines, resulting in a non-financially viable project,” the spokesperson said. 

Repowering a wind farm has become common in some countries, but it is more than just a cosmetic makeover, with Codrington a case in point: its 1990s design turbines are only rated at 1.3 megawatt (MW) each, with a hub height of 50m and blade tip height of 81m. 

Today’s modern turbines are rated at between 6 MW and 8MW of capacity, with tip heights above 200m. And they are only likely to get bigger. 

The size difference alone means new foundations, new sites as the turbines need to be spaced differently, and upgraded infrastructure to send any extra power into the grid. 

All of that requires the proponent to go through all of the regulatory approvals processes anew and secure a new connection agreement.  

Pacific Blue – formerly known as Pacific Hydro, but which changed its name in 2023 after a buyout by China’s State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) – has started early talks with the Moyne Shire council, state authorities and regulators about its decommissioning plans, and says it met with landowners in 2024.

Part of its permit for operating says decommissioning has to be finished within 12 months of the wind farm stopping operations, although the timeline for the final spin of a rotor is yet to be finalised. 

The final details for decommissioning include a decision on how the site will be rehabilitated, which will be firmed up with community input, and how to recycle the site’s infrastructure.

Also nearing the end of its life is the neighbouring 30MW Yambuk wind farm, which was launched onto the Victorian grid in 2007. 

But Pacific Blue would not say what its plans are for Yambuk, only that it’s focusing first on decommissioning the Codrington wind farm. 

Yambuk, however, is part of the bigger 195 MW Portland wind project, which includes four wind farms in the area and was finished in 2011.

See also: Berrybank lightning strike could be the new normal for wind farms, says expert

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Note: We have taken note of some comments pointing out that the Crookwell and Salmon Beach wind projects were built before Codrington. We suspect the dispute about who was the first “commercial” wind farm – as Pacific Blue claims for Codrington – comes down to a definition of “commercial.”