Largest Windfarm in the State of South Australia Steps Forward for Construction

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--TrustPower Limited (Tauranga, New Zealand) has recently awarded an engineering, procurement and construction contract to Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany) to engineer, procure and construct the Snowtown II wind farm project proposed at Snowtown, South Australia. Siemens was awarded a full-fledged turnkey contract for the development of this 144-megawatt (MW) project, which includes the installations of transformers, switchgears and grid connections.

During 2004, Trustpower (Tauranga, New Zealand) proposed a $350 million wind farm development program, to develop a 358-MW wind farm in two phases. Phase 1 of the project was completed in 2007, and the wind farm generates 88 MW of electricity using 45 2-MW Suzlon wind turbines, which were built on 255-foot steel towers.

Upon completion of the phase 1 development, Trustpower has applied for approvals and consents to develop phase 2 of the project. Trustpower has received all the approvals in July 2012 and is pressing heads to proceed with the construction. Trust power is currently conducting site preparations at the construction site.

Snowtown phase II will be built as two separate wind farms at Snowtown South and Snowtown North. These areas share a single transmission line and grid connection. Trustpower will build a 126-MW wind farm at Snowtown South and a 144-MW wind farm at South of Snowtown. This whole project is estimated to cost approximately $400 million, which will be shared between the North and South wind farm developments.

Recently, Trustpower announced the contract agreement with Siemens to supply the turbines and develop the wind farm project. Siemens will develop this project using 90 SWT-3.0-101 turbines that produces 3 MW of electricity each. Siemens will use a new gearless drive wind turbine technology for the first time to reduce the cost of electricity generation and also to improve the efficiency and reliability. The full-fledge construction kickoff of this project is expected to commence in early October 2012, and the overall construction period is expected to be 20 to 23 months. The project is expected to be completed by September 2014.

Siemens has selected Civil & Allied Technical Construction Pty Limited (trading as CATCON) (South Australia, Australia) to conduct civil work on the site. Siemens will finalize the local suppliers and remaining subcontractors by October 2012.

Origin Energy was awarded a 100% power purchase agreement from Trustpower to utilize the electricity generated from the wind farm on a 15-year long-term basis. Once this project is built, it will become the largest wind farm in the state. The wind farm will generate enough renewable energy to supply electricity to 180,000 South Australian homes.

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