Image of the Day: Indigenous art meets SA wind farm

Nearly eight months after it powered on for the first time, South Australia’s 100MW Hornsdale Wind Farm has unveiled stunning new artworks on two of its Siemens wind towers – paintings by the local Ngadjuri and Nukunu people.

Spanning the base of the towers, the paintings were commissioned by the wind farm’s developer, Neoen, to tell the story of the land and connection it has to the indigenous people of the region, as well as to reflect the collaborative community approach used to develop the wind farm.

The artist for Nukunu people was Jessica Turner and the artists for Ngadjuri people were Chris Angrave and Louise Brown.

“The use of Aboriginal paintings on wind towers at Hornsdale is recognition of the importance this land holds for the Ngadjuri and Nukunu people. These towers symbolise the coming together of the world’s oldest culture with the technologies of the future for the benefit of the nation,” said South Australian Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation Minister Kyam Maher at the unveiling.

Already, Hornsdale is a project of some significance for the renewable energy industry, as the first new-build wind project to get approval after legislation of the reduced Renewable Energy Target. Last June, the project secured finance for its second 100MW stage.

The wind farm has also twice been awarded a 20-year contract to supply green energy to the ACT, with the second stage achieving a record low price of $77 per MWh, which has been credited to the site’s excellent resource and an optimal finance/equity structure.

“We like Australia, and we want to build more than 600MW of Renewable Energy projects by 2020,” said Neoen Australia managing director Franck Woitiez in June 2016.