Expansion of one of Australia’s largest wind farms commences

The Golden Plains wind farm in Victoria is just months from producing its first electricity, and the developer says it has already started work on expanding the facility.

Work has begun on expanding one of Australia’s largest wind farms, with the project expected to produce 7 per cent of Victoria’s energy needs on course to be completed by 2027.

The expansion of the 1.3 gigawatt Golden Plains wind farm in Victoria is a timely boost to Australia’s efforts to bolster renewable energy capacity as Australia’s struggles to meet its ambitious energy transition goals.

The pace of new developments is under the microscope after an ambitious target of having renewable energy account for 82 per cent of the country’s electricity generation mix by the end of the decade adds further pressure on fossil fuel generators.

TagEnergy, the developer of the project, said it has finalised funding for the second stage of the project and work has begun.

TagEnergy said it secured non-recourse finance from a global group of clean energy transition lenders including Australia’s green bank, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac, Denmark’s Export & Investment Fund, Japan’s Mizuho Bank, France’s Natixis Bank, the Bank of China and Germany’s Deutsche Bank.

Andrew Riggs, TagEnergy’s managing partner – Australia, said the project would ease concerns about energy security in a state that was one of the country’s most dependent on fossil fuels.

“This mega-project materially improves Victoria’s energy security, puts downward pressure on electricity costs and dramatically reduces carbon pollution. Together with our partners, we are accelerating the energy transition,” Mr Riggs said.

Like with stage 1, the expansion will be on a fully merchant basis.

A merchant generator trades in the wholesale market rather than underpinning its revenues by long-term power purchase contracts with customers.

The first stage of the wind farm, generating 756MW of electricity, is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2025.

Once all work is completed, Golden Plains wind farm will effectively prevent more than 4.5m ­tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere annually – equivalent to 3 per cent of Victoria’s total greenhouse emissions.

Mr Riggs said 25 per cent of the turbines have now been erected. The second phase, worth some 577MW, will be ready in 2027.

TagEnergy praised policy settings that have incentivised the expansion. The federal Labor government last year introduced a policy to underwrite some 32GW of new renewable energy capacity into the market by 2030.

Mr Riggs said the project could elect to bid into the so-called Capacity Investment Scheme for a portion of the renewable energy generated, though he said the scheme has attached significant interest.

TagEnergy has signed two agreements to sell electricity to data centre giant, Equinix, and Snowy Hydro.

The Golden Plains deal is Equinix’s first long-term power purchase agreement in the Asia-Pacific region. It becomes operational on January 1, 2029.

The deal would help Equinix reach renewables coverage targets at its 17 International Business Exchange data centres across Australia. Equinix in 2019 committed to contracting sufficient renewable energy to cover its 250 global sites.

Last week, Australia’s most powerful group of solar and wind farm developers say Anthony Albanese will fail to hit his target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030, as slow planning and onerous environmental approvals are stymieing efforts to build enough green energy this decade.

The Clean Energy Investor Group, which represents companies such as Andrew Forrest’s Squadron ­Energy, Macquarie and French giant TotalEnergy, hit out at new federal guidelines for project ­approvals it warns would torpedo the Albanese government’s signature renewable target.

Originally published as Expansion of one of Australia’s largest wind farms commences