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Clean Power Vestas wind turbines at Macarthur wind farm. Image Credit: Vestas

Published on April 15th, 2013 | by Ronald Brakels

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Largest Wind Farm In Southern Hemisphere Opens Down Under

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April 15th, 2013 by  

Vestas wind turbines at Macarthur wind farm. Image Credit: Vestas

Vestas wind turbines at Macarthur wind farm.
Image Credit: Vestas

The 420 megawatt Macarthur wind farm was opened in the state of Victoria on Friday. It is the largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere and its 3 megawatt Vestas turbines are the largest in Australia. The Mcarthur Wind Farm is actually the first project to use Vestas’ V112-3.0 MW wind turbines. The project’s expected operating capacity is 35% and its cost was almost exactly one billion dollars.

One billion dollars may sound like a lot of money, probably because it is, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good deal. The wind farm has an operating life of 25 years and if a 5% discount rate is used for the cost of money, it will generate electricity at about 6 cents a kilowatt-hour. While this is slightly higher than the average price of electricity generated from coal in Australia, it does have the very large advantage of being non-fatal on both the personal and planetary scales. It’s also cheaper than electricity from new coal plants and is a major reason why Australia is extremely unlikely to ever build any new coal capacity.

Blown through timeThe wind farm was officially opened on Friday, but has been generating electricity for months. This is one of the advantages of wind power over many other sources of electricity. There’s no need to wait until it’s complete before starting to get power out of it.

Some people have taken the opening of the wind farm as an opportunity to point out that wind power doesn’t supply energy on demand. But in Australia we have a pretty cunning method of getting around this. When we want electricity, we pay people money to supply it to us. I know this might sound like a pretty wild and crazy idea, but it’s just the sort of thing you can expect from a weird place like Australia. As we’re likely to continue to pay money to people who supply us with electricity when we want it, I’m confident our demand for power will continue to be met.

Crikey QuoteGiven the low cost of wind energy and its habit of not destroying the planet, you may expect Australia to be currently building many new wind farms to take advantage of its wide open spaces and excellent wind resources. Unfortunately, this isn’t really the case thanks to politics. Australia is slowly and painfully dragging its way towards an election and so far the opposition appears determined to stuff the wind power genie back into its bottle. As a result, investors are waiting to see what will happen before they go ahead with projects. This, unfortunately, means Australia will end up emitting more CO2 than it otherwise would at a time when we should be going hell for leather at reducing it. I just hope that the point where the politicians now opposing wind power suddenly realise they were actually in favour of it all along comes sooner rather than later.

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About the Author

lives in Adelaide, South Australia. Now that his secret identity has been revealed he is free to admit he first became interested in renewable energy after environmental mismanagement destroyed his home planet of Krypton. He is keenly interested in solar energy and at completely random intervals will start talking to himself about, "The vast power of earth's yellow sun."


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  • ben

    At least I got my Honda generator which gives me base load power 24 hours a day seven days a week ,wind power you can never depend on it, just imagine get the job done when the wind is in blowing, wind power never works.

    • Bob_Wallace

      Smart move, ben.

      Generating your power at nice high kWh rate and dumping lots of CO2 into the environment.

      Hooray for you!!!

      • ben

        My Honda generator runs on biogas not like your dirty grid connected solar systems which only produces dirty power damages appliances and causes power surges. I’m unlike the rest of use who sponge on the back of the coal generators in order to put your grid connected solar power back into the grid with no base load power like my Honda. What, you got something against biogas now? But is okay for dirty grid connected solar power riding on the back of the coal generators subsidising your free electricity. Why didn’t you get off the grid, unlike me who did not add one cent to society? You followed the crazy Germans Utopia solar power save the planet green energy, but still dependent on fossil fuel, importing power from the Czech Republic France or any other nation they can get their hands on in order to provide power for their nation. My Honda generator gives me all the power I need it runs 24 seven on biogas, you green thumb people are anti everything including biogas. By the way any CO2 that produce out of my Honda generators good food for the plants it makes them grow faster.

        • Bob_Wallace

          What’s the source of your biogas?

          (I’m trying to overlook the fact that you’re coming across as a pompous ass.)

          • ben

            What now you don’t like swine’s? Yes the swine’s got big asses which produce lots off biogas, yet I knew it, I knew the couldn’t get your hands dirty and this to infected with green virus.

          • Bob_Wallace

            I grew up on a farm. I’ve helped raise and slaughter pigs. I know very well how much pig shit stinks.

            You have a small niche energy source. Few people have enough access to enough bio-waste to run a generator. It’s good to see that you’re making use of your pig byproduct and helping cut back on fossil fuel use.

            I know people who have year round hydro access and others who have very reliable wind resources. They also produce their power without fossil fuels. (I have to fill in a modest percent with fossil fuels because solar doesn’t cover my needs 24/365.)

            Now I have no idea where you got the idea that “green thumb people are anti everything including biogas”. That’s Limbaugh-level stupid.

            I also know of no one who is happy about using coal to fill in for wind and solar. It’s simply the times we live in, it will take a few more years to finish getting coal shut down. We’ve cut back about 33% on coal use over the last few years and will continue to shut it down. But we can only shut it down as fast as we replace coal (and natural gas) output with efficiency and renewable generation.

            As for the Germans, Germany is net exporter of electricity. They sell their excess electricity to other countries. When they need electricity they purchase from the cheapest source which is, at times, Czech. Germany is reducing the amount of electricity they get from coal and are on route to being CO2 free by 2050. One does not make massive changes overnight.

  • alpha2actual

    First of all, compliments to the commentators here for being civil and informative. However, you have not addressed my original premise. It is inconceivable to me that, on basic cost benefit analysis that a cogent human being, or a political entity, could possibly invest 2.6 BILLON dollars in a project that produces 468 megawatts when in reality it produces 187 megawatts applying a very generous capacity factor of 40% when a CCNG plant rated at 570 megawatts costing 311 MILLON dollars (2010) is able to generate 486 megawatts (applying the industry standard of 85%).

    I would really appreciate a comment that justifies the investment in offshore wind turbines predicated on this cost benefit analysis. I would really appreciate an informed comment counter to my position. Please don’t give me the “wind is free argument” otherwise we will have to visit the Energy Density argument. To wit, natural gas has an energy density of 56 mega joules per kilo, while a kilo of water dropped 100 meters over a dam has a density of between .003 and .006 depending upon the gradient of decent. Uranium 235 has a density of 192,000,000 mega joules Obviously nuclear is the way to go and ultimately the only way to go. Respectfully Submitted, alpha2actual

    • Ronald Brakels

      I don’t know if offshore wind makes sense for Maryland. After all, I am in Australia. I’d have to know more about what other low emission alternatives were available including the cost of onshore wind power from interstate. But I do know what doesn’t make sense. Destabilizing the climate and putting millions of lives at risk by burning fossil fuels. Also, asking a question about the economics of wind power and specifically asking people to not mention fuel cost because density, that also doesn’t make sense.

    • Bob_Wallace

      Again, we need carbon free ways to generate electricity. Offshore wind is an excellent source for energy since it tends to blow more regularly than does onshore wind. And our higher density population centers tend to be close to coast which make transmission costs less.

      The first offshore wind farms will be expensive. As we build and gain experience/develop the needed infrastructure costs will drop.

      The “energy density” argument is irrelevant. Wind is free. We have learned how to use it on shore to generate cheap electricity.

      You can toss around terms like “energy density” and “cost benefit analysis” but unless you understand the basic issues you will totally miss the point.

      Nuclear is 1) too expensive, 2) too dangerous, and 3) takes too long to bring on line.

    • RobS

      It is inconceivable to me that any apparently cogent human being could ignore the fact that they are comparing build costs alone for two energy sources where one has almost zero ongoing costs and one requires fossil fuel to be purchased for the life of the plant.

  • http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan

    I love our commenters!

  • alpha2actual

    March 19 (Reuters) – Cape Wind said Tuesday it expects to complete financing for its long-delayed 468-megawatt offshore wind farm and start construction of the project in federal water off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, by the end of the year. Cape Wind said in a statement it selected Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, a unit of Japanese bank holding company Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, as its coordinating lead arranger of the commercial bank portion of the debt financing for the project. Energy experts have said it will cost about $2.6 billion to build the wind farm.

    Bottom line 2.6 Billion US begets 468 megawatts before capacity factor considerations while 311 Million US invested in a Combined Cycle Natural Gas plant generates 570 megawatts. It doesn’t take a Harvard MBA to come to the conclusion that the Cape Wind project is untenable. This Son of Solyndra project should be left twisting, twisting slowly in the wind

    • Bob_Wallace

      First generation of any new technology is generally much, much more expensive than what the price will be once the technology matures. When we first started installing onshore wind the price of its electricity was $0.38/kWh. Now the median price of new onshore wind is $0.05/kWh with some farms producing at $0.03/kWh. No subsidies included.

      Offshore wind will be expensive until we grow the industry, build the needed infrastructure, and iron out the kinks. After that offshore will give us some very valuable daytime electricity at a very nice price.

      Natural gas is a mature technology. It makes no sense to compare the price of a mature and a start-up technology.

      That’s not hard to comprehend, is it?

    • Bob_Wallace

      I took the $2.6 billion, 468 MW numbers, added in the EIA estimate of $14.28/kW operating expenses for offshore wind, used a 43% capacity which is pretty much in the middle for offshore Delaware, 8% financing over 20 years and plugged it into a LCOE calculator.

      $0.157/kWh.

      That is a danged good price for our first offshore wind farm. A lot of that wind, being offshore, is going to replace peak hour supply and probably will save the utilities some money.

      I guess we owe the Europeans some thanks for doing the offshore wind heavy lifting for us….

      • Ronald Brakels

        Actually it would be a lot cheaper, as an 8% discount rate is way too high for the United States. With a traditional 5% discount rate it should be about 12 cents a kilowatt-hour, but the United States economy is in such a pickle it should actually be considerably less than that.

      • alpha2actual

        My most recent bill from PEPCO billed me .08125 per kWh then added on a Residential rate which brought it .125, next month it will increase 1.5%, Maryland imports 30% of its electric power from out of state because our State Assemblymen are incapable of creating an intelligent energy game plan.
        The busbar output per WATT of the CCNGP i cited produces energy at a rate of 68,5 MILLS per watt. This number was predicated of $6.75 gas, includes operating costs and financing. That’s right, $.00685 per watt, do the math. By the way the average rate in the EU is .35 US almost 3 times what I’m paying.

        • Bob_Wallace

          We have to quit burning fossil fuels.

          I don’t know where you find that the EU is paying 35 US cents (27 euro cents) per kWh. If you look at the “Electricity Households” table on this page you’ll see the EU average is clearly much lower than your claim. Only Denmark pays that much. Only 8 out of 27 listed countries pay more than 20 euro cents for their electricity.

          http://www.energy.eu/

          Denmark’s high electricity prices are due to taxes, not the wholesale cost of electricity.

          “pre-tax price of electricity for an average medium household in Denmark is 120€ per MWh, which is virtually equivalent to the European average of 119€ per MWh”

          http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ssuccar/the_danish_wind_experience_tru.html

          Germany pays the second highest price for its electricity.

          The cost of electricity in Germany was high prior to their adding renewables to the mix. Solar and wind on Germany’s grid have brought down the wholesale price of electricity in that country. Those savings are not being passed on to consumers. Germany has a problem with too few companies controlling their energy market and creating a monopoly like condition which allows them to keep prices high.

          From a 2009 Economist article about the high price of electricity:

          “The main reason Germany’s electricity market is not working as it should is the lack of competition.”

          “A second problem is that Germany’s biggest electricity generators also own the networks that distribute electricity. Critics argue that this gives them a huge advantage over independent producers…”

          “… over the longer run, ambitious plans to increase the share of electricity from renewable sources may erode the dominance of the country’s four biggest electricity generators. Germany hopes to get as much as 30% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, and although few in the industry think the target will be met, there is nevertheless likely to be a huge investment in new generating capacity over the coming decades.”

          http://www.economist.com/node/13527440

  • alpha2actual

    Maryland’s General Assembly recently passed legislation authorizing an offshore wind turbine project, the vote was 88-48. The Bill authorizes a 1.5 Billion dollar subsidy for the project over a period of 20 years. This project is rated at 200 MegaWatts which is the baseplate (nameplate) before the capacity factor is applied. A paper published by the Center for Carbon Free Power Integration calculates a maximum capacity factor of 34.06%. Crudely Capacity Factor is the actual output when the winds are blowing optimally. Thus this project wi can generate a theoretical maximum of 68.12 MW per hour. The wind turbines have a life cycle of 20 years. European off shore turbines have a proven capacity factor of 25 to 20 percent and a life cycle of 17 years. Capacity factors for coal, natural gas and nuclear plants are 74, 85, and 92 percent respectively. Life cycle for these plants is conservatively 30 years.

    A paper authored by the National Energy Technology Laboratory, Department of Energy analyzed a Combined Cycle Natural Gas plant that was completed in 2010. This plant is rated at 560 MW applying the capacity factor of 85% output is 476 MW per hour and a life cycle of 30 years. This plant cost 311 Million dollars.

    After applying basic cost benefit analysis one should conclude that these wind farms are obscenely if not criminally expensive. In my opinion

    • Bob_Wallace

      34% capacity for offshore wind sounds terribly low. New onshore turbines are averaging over 40% with some hitting 50%. The wind off shore tends to blow more and more regularly.

      The life cycle for onshore wind turbines is more than 20 years. The 30 year old turbines at Altamont Pass are just now being replaced. Newer technology should last longer, just eliminating the gear trains should greatly increase turbine life.

      European offshore turbines installed since 2000 have proven capacity above 40%. One of the Danish wind farms has hit 50% capacity a couple of times.

      It’s much too early to say what their lifetimes might be. It could be that first generation turbines lasted only 17 years, after all they were units designed for onshore installation and they had gear trains. Now that we are building turbines designed for offshore conditions we should expect much longer lifetimes.

      The capex for natural gas plants is low. But you forgot to add in the fuel cost for those 30 years. Wind turbines have zero fuel costs.

      If you take a bunch of bogus numbers and do a cost analysis you end up with a flawed opinion.

      • alpha2actual

        Sampling of World Wind Turbine Capacity Factors.

        Sample calculation: US wind energy CF in 2011 = 119,747 MWh/(46,919 MW, end 2011 + 40,180 MW, end 2010)/2 x 8,760 hr/yr) = 0.314; based on AVERAGE installed capacity. The US 6-yr average CF, similarly calculated, is 0.289; this is a more accurate value, as it evens out varying winds from year to year.
        Germany, onshore 0.187; dismal, but rising due to offshore IWTs
        Denmark, including offshore 0.251; rising due to offshore IWTs
        The Netherlands 0.228
        The US 0.289; a high value due to excellent winds in the Great Plains.
        Texas 0.225
        Ireland 0.283; Ireland and Scotland have the best winds in Europe.
        New York State 0.249
        Spain 0.241
        China, 2012 0.166; dismal
        Australia 0.300
        UK, 2012 0.275; rising due to offshore IWTs

        https://restats.decc.gov.uk/cms/load-factor

    • Ronald Brakels

      Alpha2actual, go check your sources and come back when you have the correct information. I’m Australian and even I know Maryland’s Offshore Wind Energy Act doesn’t just apply to a 200 megawatt project. (That’s got to be embarrassing, having an Australian know more than you do.)

      • agelbert

        Good one! :>)

      • alpha2actual

        Now, Maryland is taking the lead among the handful of Mid-Atlantic coastal states in the race for wind. After two years and two failed attempts, Maryland’s General Assembly passed Gov. Martin O’Malley’s Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act of 2013. The bill will provide $1.5 billion, incentivizing projects like the construction of 40 turbines 10 miles off the coast of Ocean City and requiring 20 percent of Maryland’s electricity to come from renewable sources. In addition to powering a third of the homes on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, this 200-megawatt project could generate 850 jobs in manufacturing and construction and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by upward of 378,000 tons per year. The Baltimore Sun, April 14

        • Bob_Wallace

          “The bill will provide $1.5 billion, incentivizing projects ”

          Projects. Plural.

          The 200 MW, 40 turbine 10 mile off Ocean City is one project. Singular.

          • alpha2actual

            Dude, these are lifted from “The Baltimore Sun” a terrific newspaper for the functionally illiterate,

          • Bob_Wallace

            “functionally illiterate”

            Say no more, say no more….

        • Ronald Brakels

          Just in case anyone has trouble following, alpha2actual said the Maryland General Assembly authorized a $1.5 billion dollar subsidy for a 200 megawatt offshore wind project and after I pointed out this was wrong he posted the above newspaper quote. While it does not state it clearly, the quote shows he was wrong in his original statement. I congratulate alpha2actual for his intellectual integrity on this matter.

    • agelbert

      “Obscenely”, “criminally”? What an Orwellian pair of adjectives to try to label Renewable energy devices with.
      My, my Fossil Nuke Grandma, what big teeth you have!
      Worried about your fossil nuke power plant dividends much?
      Tough luck. It’s OVER for poison spewing power plants!
      :>)

    • Bob_Wallace

      alpha – I suspect your data comes (perhaps second hand) from a paper written by an economist named Gordon Hughes and published by the misnamed ” Renewable Energy Foundation” which is actually an organization which works to undermine renewable energy.

      When someone took the data set that Hughes used and plotted it out here’s what the Denmark wind farm performance actually looks like.

      • alpha2actual

        The sources are cited and neither of which is the publication you mention and of which I’m not familiar.

        • Bob_Wallace

          “A paper published by the Center for Carbon Free Power Integration” is hardly what I’d call a source. Care to tell us which of the many papers listed on their site makes the claim “The wind turbines have a life cycle of 20 years. European off shore turbines have a proven capacity factor of 25 to 20 percent and a life cycle of 17 years.”?

        • Bob_Wallace

          BTW, if you’ll take a look at Map 47, page 86 on this CCFP publication you should be able to see that moving just a bit offshore you hit areas where expected capacity ranges from 41% to 47%. To get down to 36% you’d pretty much have to put the tower footings in the surf line.

          http://www.carbonfree.udel.edu/resources/CCPI-DE-MSP-OSW-Context–2012.pdf

        • Bob_Wallace

          Still waiting for your source for the 17 year/25% capacity claim.

  • anderlan

    What you seem to be telling us is that electricity from a wind turbine array is worth money even though it doesn’t come at a constant power level for 24 hours a day 365 days a year (minus maintenance and overhauls)? Amazing!

    • Ronald Brakels

      Oddly enough yes. It seems that investors are more willing to invest in wind farms than coal plants or even gas plants just because wind farms don’t face the risk of being shut down before the end of their operating lives in the mad scramble to preserve a tolerable climate we may be in before the decade is out. Funny that.

      • http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan

        There’s also that funny thing called ‘price,’ which apparently favors wind turbines despite the fact that they aren’t insomniacs (or, rather, have a sleep cycle similar to cats — can’t sleep at night, but do tend to get a good bit of sleep during the day).

        • Ronald Brakels

          Well, here an individual wind turbine is “up” about 80% of the time, but sometimes it’ll be kind of lazy and other times quite active. Also, in Australia they tend to produce more electricity in the summer when demand is higher, which is nice of them.

          • Bob_Wallace

            Yeah, but your summers are kind of funny. You schedule them in the winter.

          • Ronald Brakels

            You’re the weird ones for not having a barbeque and a swim at Christmas. And don’t tell me you can’t because of “snow”. I’ve seen the Christmas specials. That stuff looks incredibly fake.

          • Bob_Wallace

            We’re working on getting rid of that snow stuff in the winter.

            It’s so inconvenient….

          • Ronald Brakels

            Yes, I understand you’re working on making more of it come down in the summer so you can cool your drinks with it. In Australia it sometimes comes down in fist sized chunks. Of course, hail is just Thor’s way of telling Queenslanders they need to put more ice in their drinks.

          • http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan

            Wow, lucky you!

          • Ronald Brakels

            Yeah, I know. When I was four we had it smashing straight through the roof of our house. Talk about convenient!

      • alpha2actual

        British Petroleum announced last week that it is divesting its sizable investment in US wind projects and concentrating on natural gas projects instead.

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