Macquarie bets big on WA wind, with new JV and 2.4GW pipeline of projects

Major new plans to build up to 2.4 gigawatts of onshore wind and connect it to Western Australia’s main grid have been unveiled, as part of a powerful new partnership between Macquarie Group and local project developer Green Wind Renewables.

Macquarie Asset Management said on Thursday that its specialist Green Investments team and GWR were working up the huge portfolio of wind projects, said to be in the early stages of development, with land agreements secured.

Macquarie says the up to 2.4GW of projects will diversify and expand its portfolio of onshore renewables, while also making a solid and timely contribution to Western Australia’s energy transition.

Timely because Western Australia is in the throes of a massive switch to renewables as part of a hugely ambitious vision – put forward by the state Labor government in May – to build 50GW of new energy capacity in just 20 years.

The new capacity is needed to supply an anticipated surge in demand for power from electrification, new green industries, critical minerals and renewable hydrogen, and state Labor has allocated $126 million in the coming year to kick-start work on the network needs for these plans.

The initial modelling expects an additional 7.2GW of new industry electricity demand over the next two decades which would require up to 51.1GW of new generation and storage capacity – almost 10 times the amount currently on the South West Interconnected System (SWIS), its main grid.

And while most of this new capacity is forecast to come from large-scale solar, largely due to more favourable economics, another couple of gigawatts of wind will no doubt be most welcome – particularly as WA proves itself to be a top spot for high efficiency wind power generation.

Macquarie says the projects it is developing with GRW will establish “a well located and diversified portfolio in high wind resource areas.”

It also notes that other projects may be incorporated into the joint venture “to enable the portfolio to continue to grow in line with increasing demand for renewable energy.”

Macquarie Group has been making some major plays into Australia’s renewable energy and grid transition scene of late, including through its recently formed global battery group Eku Energy.

Among other projects Eku has been tapped to build one of the largest big batteries in the country in the ACT, sized at 250MW and 500MWh, or two hours of storage.

In offshore wind, Macquarie offshoot Corio Generation has designs on becoming one of the biggest players in the world, with a 30GW global pipeline and two major projects totalling 4GW in Victoria.