Man crushed to death in horror wind farm accident in Rokewood, in Victoria’s west

A union says safety concerns at the site of a fatal turbine incident were raised with builders before a man was crushed by a fan blade.

A subcontractor has died at Australia’s largest wind farm as a major union says pressure to finish the project have created dangerous conditions.

The man was crushed by a fan blade at a wind farm in Victoria’s west about 8am Monday.

The incident happened at the Golden Plains Wind Farm west of Melbourne; the man died at the scene.

The second stage of Golden Plains is under construction. The work site is an Australian Workers’ Union site, and NewsWire understands the deceased man was a CFMEU member.

A person has died in an incident at a wind farm in Victoria's west. Picture: 7News

The incident happened on Monday morning. Picture: 7News

AWU Victoria secretary Ronnie Hayden said delegates of the three unions with workers on site – AWU, CFMEU and ETU – raised safety concerns with project builders Vestas in the past two weeks.

“This is not just another statistic, this is a worker who went to work and never came home,” Mr Hayden said.

The delegates were concerned Vestas had engaged “non-unionised contractors for some of the most dangerous work on site”, he said, plus “inadequate supervision” on the work site.

“This devastating loss could have been prevented,” Mr Hayden said

Stage 1 of the project officially started producing electricity last month. Picture: NewsWire / Nadir Kinani

“Just two weeks ago, union delegates from three different unions met with Vestas management to raise serious safety concerns, telling them it was only dumb luck that nobody had been killed on site yet.”

Vestas holds the engineering, procurement and construction contracts for the project and a 30-year maintenance agreement.

Vestas and developer TagEnergy have been approached for comment.

News helicopter footage filmed on Monday shows three turbines on the ground, with two appearing to be held up by metal structures.

WorkSafe fatalities investigators, technical specialists and dedicated renewable energy construction inspectors are on scene, WorkSafe Victoria said in a statement.

The farm is about 100km west of Melbourne. Picture: NewsWire / Nadir Kinani

One month ago the first stage of Golden Farms officially started creating electricity.

The wind farm is projected to make 9 per cent of Victoria’s energy or enough electricity to power 750,000 homes via 215 turbines.

Australia’s energy is made up of about 42 per cent renewables.

Aiming for completion in 2027, the farm will have the capacity to produce 1.3 gigawatts.

Developers TagEnergy started construction on the Golden Plains project without government financial underwriting in late 2022.

The overall project is set to cost $4bn, and stage 2 construction began in June.

The Australian government-owned green bank – the Clean Energy Finance Corporation – is one of the major funders.

Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, Denmark’s Export and Investment Fund, Japan’s Mizuho Bank, France’s Natixis Bank, the Bank of China and Germany’s Deutsche Bank are also project financiers.

Originally published as Man crushed to death in horror wind farm accident in Rokewood, in Victoria’s west