| From: Eric | 10/5/2024 8:30:37 AM | | | | | | Australia’s largest operating wind farm sends first power to Sunshine State grid
MacIntyre wind farm. Source: Acciona Energia
Sophie Vorrath
Oct 4, 2024
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The largest operating wind farm in Australia, the 923 megawatt (MW) MacIntyre project in south-western Queensland, has marked a significant milestone, with the first export of renewable energy to the national electricity market announced on Friday.
Located in the Southern Downs outside Warwick, the MacIntyre wind farm has connected 27 wind turbines to the grid that will begin powering Queensland over the course of October, with exports progressively ramping up as the project progresses.
Wind farm majority owner and operator Acciona Energia says another batch of 27 turbines are expected to be exporting energy by Christmas. Once fully operational, in the second half of 2025, the 162 turbine project will almost double the total amount of wind generation capacity in Queensland.
MacIntyre wind farm is neck-and-neck with Victoria’s 1,330 MW Golden Plains wind farm as the biggest in Australia, with MacIntyre taking the title of biggest in operation – for now. Both have been injecting small amounts to the grid in recent weeks, although Golden Plains now appears to be further advanced in its commissioning process.
MacIntyre will ultimately be joined by the Herries Range Wind Farm – first unveiled in late 2022 – which will more than double the size of the “Big Mac” wind precinct to around 2GW – enough to power the equivalent of more than a million homes.
MacIntyre wind farm. Source: Acciona Energia
“Today marks a significant milestone for Australia’s diversification of its energy sources with the southern hemisphere’s largest operating wind farm now generating renewable energy,” said Acciona managing director Brett Wickham on Friday.
The MacIntyre wind farm is a joint-venture between Acciona Energia and Ark Energy, a subsidiary of Korea Zinc, which will use some of project’s power to support its sister company, Sun Metals and the Townsville refinery’s decarbonisation plans.
“Decarbonising industry and producing green metals will also put Sun Metals, and Queensland and Australia’s metal exports, at a significant competitive advantage internationally,” said said Ark Energy CEO Michael Choi.
The huge wind farm also has offtake agreements with the Queensland government owned Stanwell Corporation and CleanCo totalling 550MW. CleanCo had opted to build its own 103 MW wind farm – Karara – within the MacIntyre precinct, but withdrew that plan citing grid connection issues and delays.
“Major projects such as the MacIntyre Wind Farm will make a material contribution to decarbonising Queensland’s energy consumption, particularly in hard-to-abate industrial sectors,’’ Wickham said.
“Helping large industrial and commercial energy users to decarbonise supports these important industries to stay in Australia.
“From concreters to caterers, we have sourced more than $115 million in work and services from more than 80 businesses in and around the Darling Downs region and hired hundreds of local workers.”
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| From: The Kiwi Investor | 10/6/2024 5:53:56 AM | | | | | | Australian renewable problems Like wind and solar.
A big problem for the Australian Renewable energy market. In south Australia after a major bush fire burnt the power lines. Private citizens started buying a lot of solar panels to put on their houses because having no electricity in 40 degrees heat is very uncomfortable to say the least.
Now what's happened 40 percent of private citizens have installed solar panels on their houses and sell the excess into the grid. So some days the majority of electricity is generated by private homes. So if the rest of Australia catches on then the major generators are in trouble and what's worse is that the Australian government subsidies people to install solar panels on their houses.
Another example of how bizarre the Australian electricity market is. A couple of years ago Meridian energy which is 52 percent owned by the New Zealand government owned a renewable Power Station's in Australia and then sold up and left in 2022. |
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| From: Eric | 10/10/2024 11:45:23 AM | | | | | | Plans to be unveiled for 250 turbine wind project – the biggest in main grid – in state pine plantation
MacIntyre wind farm. Source: Acciona Energia
Giles Parkinson
Oct 10, 2024
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Plans for what could turn out to be the biggest wind project in Australia’s main grid will be released next week, with 250 turbines to be spread across the state-owned softwood plantations in the central west of NSW.
Owner TagEnergy is currently building the 1.33 GW Golden Plains wind farm in Victoria, which will stake its claim as the biggest in the country when complete next year, and is one of a number of groups granted permits by the state owned Forestry Corp to explore the feasibility of wind projects in the Gurnang, Mt David and Vulcan state forests.
Its proposal for the Pines wind project is for up to 250 turbines – each rated at about 8 megawatts each – that would deliver total capacity of around 2,000 MW. It says the project would generate as much power as five million solar panels and equivalent to the needs of 1.25 million homes.
The draft layout for the wind turbines is expected to be published next week ahead of planned drop-in sessions with local communities in Oberon, Burraga and Black Springs.
The Lisbon-based TagEnergy will own and operate the project, but it has engaged Stromlo Energy, a company also headed by former senior executives from Neoen Australia, to lead the investigations and permitting phase.
It says the final design and layout is not locked in, and could get even bigger given the interest of neighbouring landowners to also host turbines.
“The draft layout will evolve as the design progresses and will be influenced by detailed studies (for example traffic and transport routes, fire risk management, grid studies, visual impact, noise,ecology, heritage, constructability, wind resource, etc) and further discussions with the community,” it says in a statement published on its website.
It says some neighbouring landholders had expressed interest in hosting wind farm infrastructure, including turbines, which could mean that the size of the project will grow over time.
It says the project will deliver direct benefits to landowners who wish to host turbines and other project infrastructure, and to neighbouring residences who would be eligible for Neighbour Benefit Program payments.
There will also be a Community Benefit Fund and an Electricity Bill Credit program which it says could deliver up to $20 million in electricity bill reductions over the life of the project.
“The final size of the project will be determined by discussions and agreements with neighbouring landowners, the capacity of the existing transmission line, the outcomes of studies, as well as feedback from neighbours, potential wind turbine hosts and the community,” it says.
It is also still subject to approvals from the Department of Planning, Housing, and Infrastructure.
The Pines wind project is one of three awarded feasibility permits in the central west by Forestry Corp in May, with the others being a 500 MW project called Sunny Corner proposed by Mainstream Renewables and Someva Renewables, and Iberdola’s Four Mile Creek project, formerly called Canobolas.
A fourth permit was issued to Neoen Australia for the Bondo wind project in the south of the state near Tumut.
The drop in sessions for the Pines project next week will begin at the Oberon Library and Community Centre on October 17, following by the Black Springs community hall on October 19, and the Burraga community hall on October 22.
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| From: Eric | 10/14/2024 3:52:58 PM | | | | | | World’s biggest wind turbine – 26 MW – rolls off production line in China
Image Credit: Dongfang Electric
Joshua S Hill
Oct 14, 2024
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Chinese state-owned manufacturer Dongfang Electric says it has completed the production of a mammoth 26MW offshore wind turbine, by far the most powerful turbine yet to roll off the production line.
Dongfang Electric shared photos of the huge turbine dwarfing company employees on social media.
Designed to operate in areas with wind speeds of 8 metres per second (m/s) and above, the turbine is also built to withstand typhoons.
And, if it were to operate in an area with average wind speeds of 10m/s, a single unit would be capable of generating 100GWh of clean energy each year – enough to power 55,000 homes on its own.
A single unit would therefore be able to cut standard coal consumption by 30,000 tonnes and reduce CO2 emissions by 80,000 tonnes.
State-owned media outlets were also in attendance for the unveiling, reporting that the turbine would operate with a blade swept area of over 310 metres, and that the hub height would measure at 185 metres.
Image Credit: Xinhua
Though it has not actually been installed anywhere, the 26MW offshore wind turbine is easily the largest of its kind in the world.
In late August, Chinese renewable energy equipment manufacturer Mingyang Smart Energy took the lead in the race to build, install, and operate the world’s largest wind turbine when it completed the installation of a 20MW turbine – which is capable of generating 80GWh each year and a swept area of between 260 to 292 metres.
If Dongfang Electric are able to install its new 26MW anytime soon, it will skip away with the lead, as there have been very few reports of a turbine that could match it.
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| From: Eric | 11/5/2024 7:00:58 AM | | | | | | 
Image from Microsoft Copilot
New Report: Offshore Wind Can Create Over 60,000 Jobs in Norway by 2050
11 hours ago
Cynthia Shahan 2 Comments
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Last August, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate released a resource analysis outlining three potential scenarios for future petroleum production on the Norwegian continental shelf. All scenarios indicate a significant reduction in production. According to Menon Economics, as the petroleum operations are dropping, the offshore wind industry has the potential to create many new jobs and provide significant economic value.
Offshore Norway, Norwegian Offshore Wind, Eksfin, and Innovation Norway commissioned the paper titled “ Market Development for Fixed-Bottom and Floating Offshore Wind” ( PDF here). The research shows that the offshore wind sector has the potential to generate 62,000 jobs by 2050, both directly within the industry and throughout its value chain. The majority of these positions are likely to be in floating offshore wind. The research emphasizes the relevance of early market entry in maximizing societal benefit. According to Menon’s study, the offshore wind business, both fixed-bottom and floating, could generate 52–139 billion NOK ($4.7–12.6 billion) by 2040.
“The report shows that the political choices we make now will be crucial to achieving the full potential for employment in offshore wind,” Arvid Nesse, CEO Norwegian Offshore Wind, said.
As one example, the paper emphasizes how delays on the Utsira Nord floating offshore wind park affect Norway’s prospective global market share. Menon conducted a similar analysis in 2022 and assessed Norway’s maximum market share in 2050 to be 13%. In this year’s analysis, it has been reduced to 11% because Norway has lost part of its advantage.
As the usage of fossil fuels causes planetary expense and loss, jobs are occasionally utilized as a thin pretext to obscure the potential for adaptation. Norway is a leader in other clean technology disciplines (and jobs); it is good to keep highlighting the jobs aspect of clean energy shifts. “ Training One Million New Apprentices for Cleantech and Climate Jobs by 2035” is a related story in the United States.
“A successful commitment to industrial development tied to offshore wind will ensure that the technology and expertise built up around the oil and gas sector are carried forward. Many of the same companies will supply the offshore wind industry, and Menon’s report shows that a targeted investment in offshore wind can compensate for the expected decline in oil and gas activity,” says Hildegunn T. Blindheim, CEO of Offshore Norway.
“Norway already has a significant offshore wind industry based on expertise from oil and gas that serves international offshore wind projects. Norwegian subcontractors also benefit from major export contracts. This report highlights the importance of having a domestic market when aiming to capture further market shares,” says Tone Lunde Bakker, CEO of Eksfin.
Håkon Haugli, CEO of Innovation Norway, believes Norway has solid potential for gaining a leading global position in floating offshore wind, regardless of regional market delays.
As far as sea birds go, they are definitely paying attention. A bird camera has been tracking the floating offshore wind turbine TetraSpar at METCentre off the Norwegian coast for almost two years. No collisions with birds have been reported.
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| From: Eric | 11/16/2024 6:28:35 AM | | | | | | We need to get the cost of wind energy down in Australia – Chinese turbines are the likely answer
Cranes move components at the Stockyard Hill Wind Farm (Credit: Goldwind).
David Leitch
Nov 15, 2024
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Vestas is the world’s largest non-Chinese wind turbine supplier. Incredibly, Australia represents the biggest share of its forward order book.
Think about that. Despite Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, despite not many projects getting to FID (financial close) in Australia, we are the largest share of the world’s largest non-Chinese turbine suppliers order book.
Recently. Vestas achieved a confirmed order in Australia for the 342 MW Lotus Creek Wind farm South of Mackay in Queensland, owned by the government owned CS Energy. The project cost is stated at $1.3 billion.
- Goldwind is the largest Chinese wind turbine supplier and its total forward order book is double the size of Vestas. Its domestic turbine prices are more than 20 per cent cheaper than Vestas turbines. In terms of installed turbines, Australia is – by a whisker, with an installed based of 1GW – still the largest offshore base for Goldwind. Goldwind, however, doesn’t seem to have many new orders in Australia.
Given that Goldwind turbines are lower cost and, in my opinion, their costs are driven by learning rate impacts and will continue to come down, I wonder whether Australian developers shouldn’t give Chinese turbine suppliers more of a go.
It’s not like the Vestas stuff is perfect. There are other suppliers, of course; both other European companies and GE in the US. GE, though, is likely to focus mostly on its home country, and one of Australia’s biggest wind farm developers, the French-based Neoen, was not flattering in its assessment of the western turbine suppliers, and indicated it is looking at China.
See: “Not always a great quality:” Leading wind developer may switch from western to Chinese turbines
There is a potential opportunity for Australia, because I believe China has excess capacity at the moment, it’s already largely locked out of the US market and could well be locked out further post the US election.
Australia is geographically quite close to China and we have very strong trade relationships with it. Australia actually holds the upper hand with China when it comes to commodities because of iron ore, but we also export a good share of our LNG production to China. Of course, we import a bunch of stuff as well.
When interest rates were low, Australia could have done far more infrastructure investment than we actually did do. It was an opportunity missed.
Right now we can access all the wind turbines, all the solar panels, all the batteries, all the EVs we want from a willing seller. Let’s not waste the opportunity. Let’s put the foot down now while the opportunity is there and go hard.
I am not an advocate for China’s politics. You couldn’t pay me enough to live in such a restrictive political system, but as far as trade goes it seems well to Australia’s benefit to buy when the opportunity is there.
Equally, we need to get the cost of wind energy down in Australia. The landed cost of turbines is about 60% of the total cost of a wind farm. Getting that cost down 20% would represent a 12% reduction in total costs. The second biggest cost is probably the combination of grid connection and the associated typically very negative MLF. But that’s for later analysis.
Australia is expensive, it’s time to go down the cost curve Some work I have been doing on levelised cost of energy (LCOE) estimates from various respected commentators leads me to think that wind development in Australia is relatively expensive by global standards.
The reasons for these different estimates can be hard to pin down but, by and large, the wind resource and the land payment cost in Australia (estimated at say A$60k per turbine per year) are globally competitive and there is no reason to expect the capital cost of the turbine in $US is any different in Australia to what it is in South America.
So, I expect that much of the cost difference is due to things like connection costs, planning costs and delays, and labour, concrete, road access and so on. One thing I do think makes a difference is whether to build your wind farm on flat land or on a ridge. Crane costs are likely to be a lot higher on ridges, but this is just speculation.
LCOE/Internal rate of return (IRR)/Net present value (NPV) models of a generic description are available from a range of sources.
These include the NREL Annual Technology Baseline, which provides good documentation of assumptions but which is USA based. Lazards also produces a similar USA based analysis but with less assumption discussion. IRENA produces an understandably global report
In Australia, the most well known and heavily analysed report is the CSIRO Gencost report. However, in my opinion, the CSIRO diminished the reliability of its report by trying to include system LCOE as well as asset LCOE data.
In addition, investment banks and many others produce asset and/or project-specific NPV analysis.
However, the estimates of LCOE and inputs show considerable variation. In the following table, where an organisation has provided two or more estimates of a parameter, I have taken a simple average of the high and the low. Figures presented in $US have been converted to $A at 1.43.
Vestas turbine achieved prices are up 10%
Note I have left the new project data but in fact Vestas new orders were stated in the Quarterly p10 as:
Orders exceeded deliveries in the quarter and concentrated in EMEA and Americas.
Vestas has a pipeline of 28 GW, most of which is in APAC, and Vestas states its three largest pipelines are Australia, USA and Brazil. So Australia is the biggest global market for Vestas at present. However, there wasn’t much growth in the pipeline in the quarter.
Vestas’ profitability has improved and the company has low levels of debt. Cashflow is better than last year but was negatively impacted by working capital adjustments. The company is still working out some loss-making business. Vestas states that those loss-making contracts will be completed in the current quarter.
Goldwind has double the Vestas pipeline and cheaper turbines Unfortunately, who ever was responsible for the English-language presentation of Goldwind’s Q3 results forgot to put any currency numbers on the following figure. Still, I assume the quoted construction cost for China in 2023 is $US986/KW.
If I convert the US$ numbers to A$, it’s a construction cost in China of $A1410 (about half the cost of fully constructed and connected plant in Australia) and the LCOE is $A38/MWh. Those numbers are materially less than the NREL estimate for the USA and the IRENA global estimate. Obviously they are less than 50% of the cost of wind in Australia.
On price, Goldwind shows the bid price into China’s bidding system.
These numbers are shown in RMB per kW. For a capacity factor of 25% and 30 years of lifetime that amounts, on my arithmetic, to a subsidy of about $A5/MWh but my arithmetic is not very good. I guess the real point is it’s falling a little bit.
So assuming Goldwind’s numbers are accurate there are two implications:
– Australia will not be competitive with China in an electricity system dominated by wind.
– Australia needs to work on getting its wind costs down. I’d argue that one way to do that is to use the Chinese expertise.
Goldwind states China installed 39 GW in the first 9 months of the year, that’s 1 GW a week. Wind capacity factor was (1134/8760)*2=26% which is not all that bad. Australia could do quite a bit better if one was to ignore MLFs and curtailment.
Goldwind sold nearly 10 GW of turbines in the first 9 months of the year and about 57% of that was 6 MW or larger. Total backlog, conceptually a firmer measure than the Vestas pipeline, is 44 GW, of which 73% is 6 MW. More importantly, the firm order backlog was 29 GW. And more importantly still, 5.5 GW of new orders were ex China
Unlike Vestas, Goldwind is geared with $A11.7 billion of debt. Deeply regrettably I don’t read Chinese, but to the best of my ability I cannot find where Goldwind reports depreciation in its quarterly data.
Operating income, an American concept, close to the Australian concept of EBIT (earnings before interest and tax) was $A7.7 billion for the 9 months, let’s say $A10 billion for the year and I estimate EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation) at, let’s say, $A11 billion. That’s a debt:ebitda ratio of around 1, which is reasonably ok and compares to Vestas quite closely.
Note: This article has been corrected. I confused Vestas new projects with Vestas orders (backlog). I apologise for the error. The revised text shows the new orders corrects some incorrect inference about the relative importance of Australia to Vestas.
Vestas unfulfilled orders are concentrated in EMEA and USA and certainly not Australia. Additionally since I am making the correction readers might note some feedback from the earlier version. “The Goldwind turbine is indeed cheaper and cheaper to maintain but is expensive to erect. Goldwind towers are much heavier and use more steel.”
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| From: Eric | 11/20/2024 3:13:14 PM | | | | | | World’s largest onshore wind turbine powers up for first time
Image Credit: Sany
Joshua S Hill
Nov 19, 2024
3
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Chinese wind energy giant Sany Renewable Energy has reportedly powered up the world’s largest onshore wind turbine, a 15 megawatt (MW) behemoth capable of powering 160,000 households with turbine blades nearly the length of the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Sany Renewable Energy successfully hoisted its 15MW wind turbine back in early October, breaking two world records as it did so, as it is the world’s largest single-unit capacity turbine and the largest rotor diameter for an onshore turbine.
The imaginatively named SI-270150 boasts a rotor diameter of 270 meters and blades measuring 131 metres in length – which rolled off the production line earlier this year.
For comparison, a single blade could be laid down the length of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and there would be less than 15 metres spare on each end before you run into the goalposts.
Image: Sany
The three turbine blades, however, boast a massive 57,256 square meters – nearly three times the area of the MCG’s playing surface.
According to several reports this week, Sany Renewable Energy announced on Sunday that it had powered up the SI-270150, marking yet another milestone for the company.
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