Pic of the Day: Final oversized components delivered to Stockyard Hill wind farm

The massive 530MW Stockyard Hill Wind Farm, currently being built in Victoria by Goldwind, has received its final shipment of wind turbine components, delivered from the Australian Keppel Prince factory.

Recognising the huge size of the wind turbine parts, they are referred to as ‘over-dimensional’ components, requiring special arrangements to be undertaken to transport the enormous parts to the wind farm site.

The Stockyard Hill wind farm will use 149 wind turbines manufactured by Goldwind, and will operate with a maximum hit of 180 metres.

Goldwind Australia’s wind farm delivery manager Justin Howes, said that the construction of the wind farm had been a major logistical undertaking, and welcomed the successful delivery of the massive component to the site.

“The final over-dimensional delivery was a tower component from Keppel Price Engineering based in south-western Victoria who locally manufactured and delivered 140 tower sections for Stockyard Hill Wind Farm.” Howes said.

“Over the past two years, the project team has managed more than 1,600 over-dimensional wind turbine component deliveries including 140 tower sections from Keppel Price Engineering and 17 overseas shipments. Each shipment consisted of more than 50,000 cubic meters of cargo that was delivered safely to site.”

The final tower section from Victorian company Keppel Price Engineering arriving at Stockyard Hill Wind Farm. (Credit: Goldwind).

Keppel Prince, which operates a wind turbine tower component factory in the south-west Victorian town of Portland, has delivered 140 tower components to the Stockyard Hill wind farm site.

“This is a significant project for Victoria, and it was pleasing to have our Victorian company support the project with local jobs and industry expertise that in turn supports our local communities,” Keppel Prince engineering executive director Steve Garner said

“It was a proud moment to see the final tower section for Stockyard Hill Wind Farm leave our engineering workshop that signalled the completion of over 85,000 labour hours worked by more than 150 of our Victorian employees,” said Mr Garner.

Goldwind Australia said that construction work is ongoing at the wind farm, with 75 per cent of the project’s wind turbines now installed. The project has been under construction since February last year, and is set to become one of Australia’s largest wind farms once completed. First power from the site was delivered to the grid in June.

The project is understood to have secured one of the lowest priced power purchase agreements at the time of signing in 2017, with Origin Energy agreeing to purchase power from the wind farm at a price below $55 per MWh.