GE today announced it had been awarded a contract with its consortium partner, Downer EDI Limited, to supply turbines, build and maintain the $350 million Boco Rock wind farm in New South Wales.
Upon completion, the wind farm will comprise 67 turbines located just outside of Nimmitabel, in the New South Wales Snowy Mountains region. The project is permitted for potential future expansion to 121 turbines.
Energy Australia has agreed to purchase the energy generated by the 113 megawatt wind farm to provide renewable power for its customers. Clean energy generated by the wind farm will be sufficient to meet the needs of at least 40,000 homes across NSW and offset approximately 300,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year relative to coal.
GE has been working with Continental Wind Partners (CWP), the developer of Boco Rock wind farm, since 2011 to fund the project through the development phase. Thai-listed Electricity Generating Public Company Limited (EGCO) will take 100 per cent ownership of the project from CWP. EGCO will retain CWP to manage the wind farm locally.
GE A&NZ Managing Director Sales and Project Finance, Jason Willoughby, said Boco Rock wind farm demonstrated GE's ability to provide and help raise funds as well as supply equipment.
"Our deep understanding of the wind market and our financial services expertise have enabled us to provide an innovative funding solution to bring the project through development to construction. From project finance, to technical equipment and maintenance expertise, we've been able to deliver a full-service solution for our partners across the lifecycle of the project.
"The success of the project is a result of working with partners with complementary skill sets including GE, Downer EDI, CWP, EGCO, the supportive local community and the banking syndicate," Mr Willoughby said.
The GE-Downer consortium will provide engineering, procurement and construction. GE will supply and commission 58, 1.7MW and nine, 1.6MW wind turbine generators. With blades that extend 50 metres and an overall height equivalent to 33 stories, the 1.7-100 is GE's latest development in wind turbine technology. Compared with the 1.6-100 wind turbine series, it has the ability to capture additional energy to boost power by six per cent, and it is the world's most efficient wind turbine in its class.
In addition to supplying and commissioning the wind turbine generators, GE will provide around $50 million worth of maintenance services over 10 years. Downer will construct the 132kV transmission line and substation as well as provide plant, civil and electrical infrastructure.
GE Renewables Asia-Pacific Leader, Peter Cowling said: "Wind power in Australia is a proven and mature technology that can be readily deployed, and the intelligence and reliability of GE's wind turbine technology makes it a natural fit with the requirements for long-term renewable energy supply in NSW.
"Boco Rock wind farm complements Australia's bipartisan target of 45,000 gigawatt hours of renewable electricity generation by 2020 and supports the potential identified by New South Wales Government's Draft Renewable Energy Action Plan for wind energy generation to add up to 1085MW of additional capacity and up to $2.3 billion of extra capital investment," Mr Cowling said.
CWP Director, Alex Hewitt, said: "After working in collaboration with GE and the local community on the development of Boco Rock, we're excited to see the project moving ahead. We're pleased to be able to assist EGCO with our knowledge and expertise of the local market."
GE has installed more than 20,000 wind turbines around the world and last year, in collaboration with CWP, GE completed Europe's largest wind farm, 600MW Fantanele, in Romania. Locally, GE recently completed its first Australian wind farm project, 55MW Mumbida, near Geraldton in Western Australia.
Construction of the Boco Rock Wind Farm will commence in Q3 2013 and is expected to be completed by Q1 2015, with power being delivered to the grid from end 2014.
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