In the middle of summer – amid warnings that an El Nino would deliver a real scorcher – Tilt Renewables realised it had a problem. It was quickly becoming clear that the green developer would not be able to get the energy promised from its new Rye Park wind farm into the grid by a Christmas deadline.

That was a problem because that 216 megawatts of energy was already contracted to Newmont Corporation, the ASX-listed gold producer, which had been a key backer of the windfarm, located in NSW’s Southern Tablelands around 1.5 hours north of Canberra. Promising to buy 55 per cent of the development’s output, Newmont effectively underwrote the construction of the entire project.