Queensland’s biggest wind farm that will power zinc refinery gets final green light

A massive Queensland wind farm that will supply more than half of the energy needs of Australia’s largest zinc refinery has been granted environmental approval and is on track to begin construction within weeks.

Acciona Energía said on Tuesday that the 923MW MacIntyre wind farm it was developing in south-west Queensland had been given the final green light for development to get underway in the second quarter of 2022.

The project, once built, will be 70% owned by Acciona, with a 30% share held by Ark Energy, a fully-owned subsidiary of Korea Zinc that was established to decarbonise the group’s energy supply.

In Australia, that decarbonisation journey has so far centred around fellow Korea Zinc subsidiary Sun Metals, and its zinc refinery in Townsville, which Ark Energy CEO Daniel Kim last year predicted could be producing 100% green zinc as early as 2025.

“We are planning for McIntyre to be fully commissioned by the end of 2024,” Kim told the 2021 Australia-Korea New Energy Forum last October. “McIntyre, through our equity offtake, will essentially supply 63% of Sun metals electricity needs.”

The massive wind farm will be located in Queensland’s Southern Downs region, 60km west of Warwick, and will consist of 162 wind turbines, which will be built, owned and operated by Acciona.

Acciona managing director Brett Wickham said this week that the project would not only deliver reliable and sustainable energy for Sun Metals, but would offer a major boost to the Queensland state government’s target of a 50% renewable grid by 2030.

“MacIntyre will demonstrate that large scale renewable energy projects are not only efficient, but they are also effective at delivering reliable and clean electricity into the grid,” he said.

On top of the offtake deal with Sun Metals, Acciona agreed to give Queensland government-owned generation company CleanCo access to 400MW of the 923MW wind farm’s total generating capacity, and to hitch a further 100MW wind farm to the MacIntyre project – to be owned and operated by CleanCo – thus taking the entire project to over 1GW.

CleanCo’s deal with Acciona has helped pave the way for the entire project to be built by 2024, while also accounting for the entire amount of the long-awaited RE400 program, initially launched in late 2017. CleanCo has a mandate to source another 1,000MW of capacity by 2025.

The huge McIntyre project, which represents a $A1.7 billion investment in the state and is expected to create 350 jobs over its lifetime, will be built under a comprehensive Environmental Management Plan (EMP) that sets out clear commitments to minimise the project’s impact.

“Everyone involved in the MacIntyre wind farm takes our environmental responsibilities very seriously,” said Wickham. “It’s important that these renewable energy projects are built. But it’s equally important that we do it in an environmentally sustainable way.”

Wickam said that the project had already kicked off its community giving program, with more than $330,000 already injected into to local grants and scholarships.