Small Victorian project tops performance rankings of Australian wind farms in 2022

The small Kiata wind farm in Victoria continues to dominate the rankings for the best performed utility wind assets in Australia, ranking number one for another year with an average capacity factor of more than 45 per cent in 2022, more than some coal assets.

Kiata is located around 50km from Horsham in western Victoria, and was developed by Windlab, now part of Andrew Forrest’s growing renewable energy empire, in 2017 and is now owned by Atmos Renewables.

It comprises just nine Vestas 126 wind turbines – which were the largest in the country when installed – and has a total capacity of 31.5MW. The largest turbines in the country are now the 6MW turbines newly installed at the Rye Park facility in NSW.

It may be small, but it is perfectly located. In 2022, according to data from Rystad Energy, it ranked as the best performing wind farm, with a capacity factor of 45.2 per cent, beating out heavy competition from Western Australia and South Australia.

Number two ranking went to APA Group’s Badingarra in WA (44.4% CF) and third ranking to another WA find farm, Foresight Group’s Mumbida facility (43.4% CF).

Another two wind farms in WA, the Yandin and Warradarge facilities, ranked number four and six respectively, while the three stages of the Hornsdale wind project majority owned by Neoen took out three of the top 10 spots.

The Snowtown 2 facility, also in South Australia, was ranked number 8 while the 200MW Silverton wind farm near Broken Hill in NSW also ranked number 7, boosting its ranking despite lingering network issues that often constrain its output.

See also: Australia’s top 10 best performing solar farms in 2022 include some originals