The North Queensland man helping lead the production of Australia’s 2nd largest wind and solar farm in South Australia said Queensland will soon experience similar projects emerging in order to secure a renewable future according to ABC News.
The final approval has been given by the South Australian government for DP Energy Australia to build the Port Augusta renewable Energy Park. The renewable farm will feature 59 wind turbines and 400 hectares of solar panels. David Blake, the company director, said the farm would provide 375 megawatts or power which is equivalent of powering 200,000 homes, saving about 470,000 tonnes of carbon emissions every year. Mr Blake said he was looking forward to seeing the construction of the recently approved wind farm at Emerald Creek on the Atherton Tablelands and said it would not be the last wind farm built in Queensland’s north. He could not reveal prospective locations of future wind farms and pointed out that windy, coastal areas like the perpetually blustery Archer Point, south of Cooktown were risky places to build the wind farms.
Mr Blake said that Australia is starting to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of renewable energy. He said that the whole world is in transition, and many are seeing the impact of rooftop solar and will also see the impact of battery storage. He also added that Queensland and South Australia have fallen behind the US in renewable energy production, but pointed to several wind farm applications across the State as an example of the change that is happening. He said that they are looking at some local projects, but for now, prefer not to disclose too much.
The northern hemisphere is home to the world’s largest and most powerful wind farms, with two in England, one in Denmark and one in Germany which produce more megawatts as compared to the Port Augusta project.
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