Wind Farm Delivers Four Months Early

Wind Farm Delivers Four Months Early

Wednesday 26th December 2007

TrustPower's wind farm project at Snowtown in South Australia has had a welcome Christmas present, with the first turbine delivering power before Christmas Day.

This is an extraordinary achievement, given that internationally, large infrastructure projects such as wind farms usually struggle to meet construction targets.

TrustPower Chief Executive Keith Tempest says the achievement is testament to the efforts and skills of a number of parties, ranging from civil and electrical contractors and turbine manufacturers Suzlon to the local network company ElectraNet.

"This turbine is the first of 42 Suzlon 2.1MW machines which were originally intended to be progressively commissioned between April and November 2008. To have achieved this result so far ahead of schedule is a great result, which bodes well for an early completion of the whole project."

Stage 1 of the Snowtown project, which is budgeted to cost a little over AUD$200 million, is expected to produce more than 350 GWh of electricity per year, enough to supply the equivalent of 60,000 average South Australian homes.

The project was signed off in January 2007, with construction work commencing in April.

ENDS

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