Big concrete pour underway at Andrew Forrest wind project that will be biggest in state

Australian renewable energy company Squadron Energy has begun pouring the concrete foundations for the 69 turbines that will make up its 414-megawatt (MW) Uungula Wind Farm, the only wind farm currently under construction in New South Wales and the biggest in the state.

In a short post on LinkedIn on Tuesday, Squadron – controlled by iron ore billionaire and green energy evangelist Andrew Forrest – revealed that 11 foundations had already been poured, with foundation anchor cages currently being assembled in preparation for reinforcing steel installation and further concrete pours.

Once complete, the Uungula Wind Farm will generate electricity equivalent to the needs of over 220,000 homes while preventing 560,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.

It will be the biggest in the state when complete, although it will likely be overtaken quickly by other projects up to three times bigger, such as Squadron’s own 700 MW Spicers Creek wind project and the 1.45 GW Yanco Delta wind project being developed by Origin Energy.

Remarkably, Uungula is the only wind project under construction in NSW, a sign that the renewables development is not happening as quickly as planned, or needed.

Another six wind projects have received underwriting deals with the federal government under its Capacity Investment Scheme, including Spicers Creek, Acen Renewables’ Valley of the Winds, Windlab’s Junction River, Tilt’s Liverpool Plains, Spark’s Dinawan and Neoen’s Thunderbolt project.

Uungula received an underwriting deal with the NSW government through its own state tenders, along with Goldwind’s Coppabella wind project and the already complete Flyers Creek wind farm. But apart from Flyers Creek and Uungula, none have yet got the go-ahead to begin construction.

Uungula is located 14 kilometres east of Wellington in the Central Western Slopes region of NSW. Construction of the Uungula Wind Farm got underway in March and the first concrete pour was completed in mid-October.

A total of 69 six megawatt turbines will be installed, with the first two shipments of turbine components already stowed safely away at the Port of Newcastle before delivery to the site in the new year.

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