|
Published: 10 September 2012
Wind farm to meet regional city’s domestic power needs
Meridian Energy Australia will soon start construction of a 64-turbine wind farm on Mt Mercer near Ballarat, Victoria. Ballarat is one of Australia's largest inland cities, with a population of over 90,000 within the municipality.
|
|
The Mt Mercer wind farm to be built near Ballarat will be Meridian Energy’s third wind farm in Australia Credit: Meridian
|
According to Ben Burge, Meridian Australia Chief Executive, the Mt Mercer project will have a capital cost of around AUD $260 million.
The 131 MW Mt Mercer wind farm – to be located 30 km south of Ballarat – will provide sufficient renewable energy to meet the electricity needs of the entire population of Ballarat.
Construction of Mt Mercer will start in December this year and will take approximately two years to complete. The project will employ around 200 people during construction. Upon completion, it will provide approximately 20 permanent jobs in the Ballarat region.
The wind farm will be connected to the state electricity grid by a new powerline and green-field terminal station near the town of Elaine. This connection will be built, owned and operated by Transmission Operations (Australia), which has the same majority owners as distribution companies Powercor/Citipower.
According to Mr Burge, the competitive National Electricity Market and Australia's Renewable Energy Target are enabling renewable energy to be delivered on a low cost and efficient basis.
‘Our job is to deliver efficient sources of renewable energy to the market and assist electricity retailers to meet [Large-scale Renewable Energy Target] liabilities, improve choice and price for Australian electricity consumers.’
Mt Mercer will be Meridian’s third wind farm in Australia. Meridian owns and operates Mt Millar wind farm in South Australia, and is partnering with AGL Energy to build the Macarthur wind farm in Western Victoria, which, at 420 megawatts, will be the largest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere.
Source: Meridian
