Wind Farm Ushers In

Era Of Renewable
Energy In Tasmania
April 8th, 2019 by Steve Hanley 

The average wind speed on the western edge of Tasmania is 30 km/h.

Not just some days, not just in certain seasons, every hour of every day
year round. That’s what makes it an ideal location for wind turbines. The
Granville Harbour wind farm will feature 31 of the wind turbines that
measure 200 meters from their base to the tip of the blades. The project
will cost $280 million to build and provide enough electricity to run 46,000
homes when completed.
Cattle rancher Royce Smith has spent the last decade trying to get the
Granville Harbour project off the ground, much of it navigating the various
federal and state approval processes needed to bring the project to
fruition. He has since sold his interest in the venture but will benefit for
lease payments for the turbines located on his land. He says the project
will help preserve the cattle farm that has been in his family for the past
50 years. “I’ve been able to employ more people and we are improving
the property with good fences,” he tells ABC News.
Project Director Lyndon Frearson says the West Coast of Tasmania
doesn’t look remote on a map but is extremely isolated. “It is very windy
out here and it’s one of the highest capacity wind farms I’ve worked on as
far as how much wind we get and the consistency of that wind.” Once
construction is complete, Smith intends to regrow the grass his cattle
need and let them graze beneath the giant structures.

Connection Costs Are A Factor

The electricity from the Granville Harbour wind farm will be fed into the
Tasmania grid via an existing substation at the Reece Dam hydroelectric
via a 10-kilometer long transmission line. State-owned Hydro Tasmania
will buy the power and export most of it to the mainland market through
an existing undersea cable.
But there are plans afoot to build more and larger wind farms in Tasmania
— up to 1000 megawatts — to supply electricity to the mainland 500
kilometers away across the Bass Straight. “Tasmania is in a good position
because we’ve got one of the best wind resources in the world,” says
energy analyst, Marc White. “The question for us is the cost of getting in
to the Victorian market. There’s concerns that a $1 billion wind farm might
need a $3 billion interconnector, so the economics are really very
different.”
Whether those grandiose plans ever come to fruition, the Granville
Harbour wind farm is expected to be completed and in operation before
the end of this year.