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Brisbane, QLD – The largest operating wind farm in Australia and the southern hemisphere has generated its first renewable energy for the national electricity grid.
The MacIntyre Wind Farm in southwestern Queensland has connected 27 wind turbines to the energy grid, and throughout October the turbines will be delivering their first renewable power across Queensland and Australia. Energy exports to the grid will progressively ramp up as the site is commissioned.
Global renewable energy developer, owner and operator ACCIONA Energía said the 162 turbine project will almost double the total amount of wind energy generated in Queensland when fully operational in Q3 2025.
“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 Energia Managing Director Brett Wickham
“When the MacIntyre Wind Farm is fully operational, it will generate enough renewable energy to power more than 600,000 homes and double Queensland’s wind energy generation.”
Over the next 12 months, the remaining turbines at the MacIntyre Wind Farm will be progressively connected, with another batch of 27 turbines planned to be exporting energy by Christmas.
Located in the Southern Downs outside Warwick, the Macintyre Wind Farm is part of the greater MacIntyre Wind Precinct comprising the MacIntyre Wind Farm and the proposed Herries Range Wind Farm which is in late-stage development.
When complete approximately 2GW of renewable energy will be generated from the Precinct - enough to power the equivalent of more than a million homes.
The MacIntyre Wind Farm is a joint-venture between ACCIONA Energía and Ark Energy, a subsidiary of Korea Zinc.
Ark Energy will use some of the generation from its share in the MacIntyre Wind Farm to support its sister company, Sun Metals Corporation and the Townsville refinery’s decarbonisation plans. Sun Metals aims to be the world’s first producer of green zinc. It was the first major refiner to sign up to the RE100 initiative and has committed to powering its operations from 100% renewable sources by 2040.
“Generation from MacIntyre Wind Farm is an exciting milestone for Ark Energy and Sun Metals. It will help to further decarbonise the Sun Metals refinery and achieve a real step-change in progress towards its RE100 commitment,” said Ark Energy CEO Michael Choi.
“Decarbonising industry and producing green metals will also put Sun Metals, and Queensland and Australia’s metal exports, at a significant competitive advantage internationally.”
The MacIntyre Wind Farm will also support other commercial energy users in infrastructure, resources, retail and transport decarbonise their operations through two PPA agreements with Queensland Government owned enterprises Stanwell Corporation and CleanCo totalling 550MW.
“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,’’ Mr Wickham said.
“Helping large industrial and commercial energy users to decarbonise supports these important industries to stay in Australia.”
The MacIntyre Wind Farm project procured more than $680 million in labour, services and materials across Queensland during its construction period.
“The construction of the MacIntyre Wind Farm has created significant economic activity across Queensland, creating jobs and procurement opportunities for large and small businesses alike,” Mr Wickham said.
“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.’’
On average, between 400-450 people have been working on the project during its construction phase, with locals from the Darling Downs region representing more than a third of the employment base.
MacIntyre Wind Farm key facts:
- More than four million work hours have been completed on the project so far.
- $680 million in labour, services and materials procured across Queensland.
- On its largest single day of activity, more than 1000 people worked on the project.
- When fully operational the project will employ between 35-40 people on site.
- The project has 9 host landowners across its 36,000 hectare footprint.
- Project is located on operational livestock farms with sheep, goats and some cattle successfully coexisting with the wind turbine operations.
- The footprint of the project was reduced by 20,000 square metres with the Australian-first use of trucks specially designed to lift and transport wind turbine blades.
Note: ACCIONA Energia uses the Queensland Government's Charter of Local Content scheme that defines ‘local’ as within 125km of the project which covers Stanthorpe, Warwick, Millmerran and Inglewood.