Chinese wind energy giant Goldwind has announced it will begin
construction of the 175 MW White Rock wind farm in northern NSW in
November, the second big wind farm to get the go-ahead since the revised
renewable energy target legislation passed the Senate last month. Goldwind announced on Thursday that it has obtained agreement from
Transgrid to connect the 70-turbine wind farm, located between Glenn
Innes and Inverell, in the heart of Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce’s
electorate.
Last week, a consortium led by GE announced financial closure for the 240MW Ararat wind farm, with construction to begin in the next few months. Both GE and Goldwind are major wind turbine suppliers with massive
balance sheets that have the financial grunt to support the building of
their wind farms without power purchase agreements, unless smaller
developers.
The Ararat wind farm has contracted 40 per cent of its output to the ACT government, and decided to take “merchant risk” on the rest of the output, meaning it will sell electricity into the wholesale market. Goldwind has neither a power purchase agreement or outside financing
at this stage, but intends to negotiate these as the project moves
forward. It took a similar approach in the construction of the Mortons
Lane and Gullen Range wind farms. Goldwind Australia managing director John Titchen said the passage of the RET had given clarity to the industry.
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/07/02/goldwind-to-build-175mw-wind-farm-first-big-project-north-of-sydney/