New wind projects propel Sunshine state to new milestone, and avoid clash with solar

Queensland has the lowest share of renewables – and the highest dependence on coal – of any state in Australia, and one of the main reasons has been its lack of wind power.

The 12 MW Windy Hill project in the north of the state was one of the first in Australia, but it took nearly 20 years for another wind farm to join the grid in Queensland, the 180 MW Mt Emerald project.

The state now has eight wind farms in full operation or going through the commissioning process, and it is the input of the new projects that have propelled wind energy output above 1 gigawatt for the first time.

According to data from GPE NEMLog, wind energy hit a peak of 1,022.4 MW just after 1 am on Thursday, a jump of more than 100 MW from the previous record set in November last year.

The chief drivers of this new peak are the new MacIntyre and Clarke Creek wind farms, which are both working their way through their commissioning processes and are now peaking at more than 100 MW of output.

Acciona’s MacIntyre project, at 923 MW, will be the biggest wind farm in Australia, at least until it is overtaken by Victoria’s Golden Plains wind farm when its second stage is complete, while Squadron Energy’s Clarke Creek wind farm will be able ramp up to its capacity to 450 MW.

Even at Thursday’s peak, wind accounted for just 16 per cent of state demand, but what is interesting – and attractive for wind farm developers – is that the wind resource in Queensland tends to be delivered mostly in the evening, which is a nice counter to the rooftop solar and large scale solar that dominate during the day.

As this graph for the last three days of output from OpenNEM reveals, wind compliments the daytime solar from rooftop PV and the state’s 38 large scale solar farms.

As more wind projects come on line – another 1.2 GW in capacity from MacIntyre and Clarke Creek and another 800 MW from the Wambo and Lotus Creek wind projects also under construction – that will boost the output quite considerably.

The question for renewable energy developers is how much of the huge pipeline of projects will actually see the light of day, given the strict new planning rules introduced by the new LNP government, and its antipathy to wind energy and its refusal to sign up to the previous government’s renewable energy targets.

The Queensland Conservation Council says up to $10 billion of near term renewable investment plans are at risk.

“Right now we’re seeing billions of dollars being spent on new projects in regional Queensland because of our state’s renewable energy targets and clear policy direction set by the former state government,” QCC campaigner Stephanie Grey said.

“We’re really concerned about the Queensland Government’s approach to energy and the signals they’re sending to the renewable energy industry. They don’t have an energy plan, the Premier has floated repealing the state’s renewable energy targets, and now they’ve withdrawn support for a major green hydrogen proposal. 

“We’ve got to get the energy transition right to secure a prosperous future for our communities – one where we avoid the worst impacts of climate change and have set up thriving new clean manufacturing industries to drive our economy.”

Queensland now runs on close to 30 per cent renewable energy, while Australia’s main grid runs on 40 per cent renewables. The former Labor government’s targets included 50 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2035.

See also Renew Economy’s Large Scale Wind Map of Australia for further information.