Construction and transmission work begin on delayed wind farm in Victoria

Construction of the Ryan Corner wind farm in Victoria and its associated transmission assets has begun, after multiple delays that caused pain for one of its major contractors.

Transmission company AusNet announced on Wednesday that it will begin work on the 19kms of new transmission lines, a new transformer and a new substation for the 218MW Ryan Corner wind farm, which is located in the south west of the state near Port Fairy.

It follows news last month from listed contracting group Decmil that its $71 million “balance of plant” work had also finally begun after repeated delays (which it blamed on various approvals) that forced it to write down its revenue and profit expectations for the last financial year.

Ryan Corner in 2020 inked a deal with federal government-owned gentailer Snowy Hydro – a 15-year contract-for-difference for 75% of the energy produced by the wind farm, and it was then expected to begin operations in the second half of this year.

It’s not entirely clear what caused the delays to the various approvals.

Ryan Corner is owned by Global Power Generation, which is in turn majority owned by Spain’s Naturgy Group (75 per cent) and 25 per cent by the Kuwait Investment Authority.

AusNet chief development officer Chad Hymas says it has delivered infrastructure and 180kms of transmission assets to connect nearly 2GW of renewables and battery storage to the market. The transmission work for Ryan Corner is being carried out by Consolidated Power Projects.

The wind farm will feature 4.2MW Vestas wind turbines and is now scheduled to be complete in late 2023, when it will deliver the equivalent power needs of around 140,000 homes. It will support 300 jobs during construction and eight permanent jobs during operations.