The Liverpool Range Wind Farm project received planning approval for up to 267 turbines in March 2018, and since then there have been advancements in wind turbine technology. The latest turbines, while larger, are more efficient, meaning the Project could be built with fewer turbines while powering more homes with clean energy.
Work is underway to progress the Project towards construction, including more accurate estimates of ground disturbance and vegetation clearing for the wind farm, transmission line and public road upgrades.
The optimisation work undertaken since late 2019 has identified changes to the Approved Project that would allow the Project to be built and operated more efficiently. So, what are changes being proposed to the Approved Project and what do they mean?
- A reduction in maximum number of turbines where we are currently considering a reduction of up to 44 turbines from 267 to 223 (subject to final design optimisation studies).
- Increase in maximum blade tip height from 165 metres to 250 metres above ground level (AGL) (increase of 85 m).
- Refinements to the turbine layout, access tracks and supporting infrastructure, to provide greater certainty about potential impacts and how the Project will look and operate.
- Minor adjustments to the Transmission Line alignment.
- Addition of a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) either at the proposed network connection at Ulan or within the wind farm site.
- Modification of the Over-dimensional (OD) vehicle route, including road and intersection upgrades, between the Port of Newcastle and the Project site to enable the transport of longer blades and other larger wind farm components.
- Updates to native vegetation clearance thresholds to account for road upgrades and optimised design/layout.
- More clean energy for Australian homes and businesses resulting from an increase in generation capacity from approximately 1,000 MW to a potential capacity of approximately 1,300 MW at full build. This could power around 670,000 homes - a potential increase of approximately 192,000 compared to the Approved Project.
- Producing more clean energy means more carbon emission savings - up from 2.3 million tonnes to over 2.9 million tonnes per year. That’s equivalent to taking around 943,000 cars off the road each year.
- Energy security as part of the energy transition - at full development, the Liverpool Range Wind Farm will make a significant contribution to replacing generation capacity that will need to be filled from retiring coal-fired power stations.