The Australian Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has provided A$180m for the 227MW Collector wind farm in south-east New South Wales.
The wind farm’s construction, which began this month, is likely to take between 20 months and two years, with full commercial operation expected in 2021.
The CEFC’s role as sole debt financier supports the accelerated delivery of the A$360m project, which will use 54 V117-4.2MW turbines from engineering, procurement and construction contractor Vestas with 91.5-metre hub heights.
The Collector wind farm, being developed by Ratch-Australia, is located along the Cullerin Range south-west of Goulburn, which boasts some of the windiest conditions in New South Wales.
The plant is expected to generate 528 gigawatt hours of energy annually, enough to meet the needs of around 80,000 average homes.
CEFC wind sector lead Andrew Gardner said that as sole debt financier to the project, the corporation had enabled it to reach financial close on a fully merchant basis, ahead of securing energy offtake contracts.
“Finance for fully merchant projects unlocks further wind sector opportunities and builds confidence in their longer-term commercial potential,” Gardner added.
This development has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 9.3 million tonnes over its lifetime.
“We are pleased to see CEFC finance continuing to fill a significant finance gap for developers, with our capital supporting accelerated project development before off-take contracts are locked in,” Gardner said.
Collector will connect into, major network transmission facilities in the state of New South Wales.
As part of the investment agreement with the CEFC, Ratch-Australia will install energy storage at its 42.5MW Collinsville solar project in Queensland to improve grid stability in the region.
The CEFC has previously provided finance to the Collinsville project.
CEFC’s investment in Collector brings the corporation’s investment in Australia’s wind sector to almost $1bn, delivering 2GW of wind energy across regional Australia.
Gardner said: “CEFC investments in large-scale wind developments have tracked a remarkable level of innovation and change in the sector.
“While our earliest finance supported projects which had secured only partial off-take agreements, we are now working on hybrid projects that bring together wind, solar and storage, as well as projects that are seeking new style off-take agreements with large corporates.”
He said these developments have driven considerable infrastructure investment in regional areas, while creating long-term assets that capitalise on Australia’s natural wind resources, with wind developers also contributing additional investment to local communities through long-term community development funds.
In the case of Collector, A$240,000 will be injected into the local community each year.