Wind Farm Developments (“WFD”) is a special purpose company formed to originate, develop, project manage, finance and commission, utility scale wind farm developments on high wind speed, complex terrain wind farm sites, in Australia and New Zealand. The principals involved with WFD have been involved in the wind industry since starting in New Zealand in 1996, and Australia since 2000. The company has more recently focused on just Australia, with a particular emphasis on Victoria, Northern NSW and South Australia.
What WFD does;
- Traditional developer type services targeted at utility scale wind farms on high wind speed complex terrain sites;
- Identification of suitable wind farm development sites reflecting, local environment and commercial considerations;
- A focused approach to attain on cost, on time and on yield new renewable energy developments;
- An outsource avenue for investors in wind farms seeking the input and active participation of a proven developer;
- Project management of wind farm development, financing, construction, commissioning, and operation expertise and experience.
Typical Timeline;
Each project has a unique timeline but the typical steps are;
- Grid capacity;
- Landowner interest;
- Resource verification;
- Community consultation;
- Preliminary design;
- Design feedback and iterations;
- Survey work for constraints;
- Reiterate design for constraints;
- Landowner approval of design;
- Submit to Planning Authority;
- Further information or design changes;
- Public Notification of Planning application;
- Planning process involving submissions and or hearings;
- Turbine equipment selection;
- Connection agreement;
- Financial Close and construction;
- Operations and maintenance; and
- Decommissioning and or re-powering.
Benefits;
The benefits will vary by project but using a 16 turbine wind farm with say 22MW DC of co-located solar and 3 to 5 battery containers as a small to medium scale example- in Victoria – the indicative numbers are;
- Greenhouse Gas Savings/Year: approximately 220,000 tonnes CO2 equivalent.
- Homes Powered: approximately 54,000 homes.
- Annual output up to 350 to 380 GWh pa.
- 377 FTE positions during construction directly and indirectly.
- 18.8 ongoing direct FTE positions both directly and indirectly in local community.