A major shipment arrived in Townsville this month bound for the hybrid renewable Kennedy Energy Park near Hughenden.
CS Energy has a 10-year offtake agreement to purchase the electricity output from the project, as well as a proportion of its large-scale generation certificates.
The $160 million project will have a maximum generating capacity of 60 megawatts and is being developed by Windlab and Eurus Energy Holdings.
The 36 massive wind turbine blades for the project arrived at the Port of Townsville on 7 June and have already been unloaded.
All components of the 12 Vestas wind turbines are currently stored in the Port of Townsville and will be transported to site from early July onwards.
The 67-metre long turbine blades being unloaded at the Port of Townsville (Photo: NSS).
Vestas is providing the wind turbines and control software, and Quanta Solar and Vestas are delivering the engineering, procurement and construction of the project.
Quanta Solar President, Charles Wright, said preparation for the large structures was underway at the Kennedy Energy Park construction site near Hughenden.
“Each turbine requires 600 cubic metres of concrete footing, which is equivalent to around a quarter of an Olympic swimming pool,” Mr Wright said.
“Pours for each footing will take between 8-10 hours to complete,” he said.
The first concrete pour for the turbine bases (Photo: Nacap).
Kennedy Energy Park will comprise a 15 MW solar photovoltaic plant, 43.2 MW wind plant and 2 MW/4 MWh of battery storage.
When completed later this year, it will be the first utility scale wind, solar and storage hybrid generator connected to the national electricity network.
KEP co-owner, Windlab Chief Executive Officer, Roger Price, said the project would be able to generate around 210,000 megawatt hours of electricity per annum – enough power to supply more than 35,000 average Australian homes.