Golden Plains becomes biggest operating wind farm in Australia, pushes state to new record

The Golden Plains wind farm in Victoria is now officially the biggest operating wind farm in the country, after working through another hold point and being allowed to increase its generating capacity to 560 megawatts (MW).

The increase means the $4 billion project overtakes the Stockyard Hill wind farm, previously the biggest operating wind farm in the country with a capacity of 530 MW, and takes it ahead of the MacIntyre wind project in Queensland.

Golden Plains and Macintyre have been jockeying for the “biggest wind farm” title since they both began construction in 2023. MacIntyre will have a capacity of 923 MW when it is completed, while Golden Plains is being built over two stages – 756 MW and 577 MW, for a total capacity of 1.33 gigawatts.

TagEnergy the majority shareholder of Golden Plains, says 100 of the 122 wind turbines for stage 1 of the project have now been installed, and construction has started on stage 2. It is expected to reach full production in 2027.

The increase in output from early Tuesday after being waved through to the new hold point helped Victoria establish a new record output for wind energy – of 4,452.6 MW at 9.45am on Tuesday, according to GPE NEMLog. That beat a record set in June by around 35 MW.

“Not only is our Golden Plains Wind Farm the biggest onshore wind farm under construction in the Southern Hemisphere, it is now officially the highest generating wind farm in Australia too,” it said in a statement on LinkedIn.

“It’s big and it’s only getting bigger.”

Golden Plains will not have the title of biggest for long. It is possible that MacIntyre might overtake it – albeit temporarily – if it transitions to a new hold point as part of its commissioning process. It is currently limited to around 300 MW.

Both will be overtaken by other bigger projects, such as Origin Energy’s 1.45 GW Yanco Delta wind project that has won grid access rights in the south-west renewable energy zone in NSW.