The first week of July has seen Infigen Energy’s Lake Bonney wind farm record one of its most impressive weeks of production in the history of operation.
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The 112 turbines with a combined capacity of 279 mega watts produced a whopping 27,000 mega watt hours in the first six days of July. To put that into perspective, this is equivalent to supplying power to 250,000 homes (about 16 times the residential consumption of Dubbo) for the last six days.
Being the largest wind farm in South Australia, the Lake Bonney wind farm makes up a significant portion of the state’s electricity supply.
On Monday morning Lake Bonney was contributing 19 per cent of the state’s power and averaged above 11 per cent penetration for the week. When considering all of the installed wind farms in South Australia, the state’s combined total reached a peak penetration of 72 per cent (Friday morning) and averaged 41 per cent for the week.
That means that on Friday morning roughly three out of every four houses in South Australia had their power supplied by wind generated electricity - an outstanding feat.
In comparison, NSW has 265 mega watts of installed wind energy and at its peak can contribute up to 3 per cent of the state’s electricity supply.
Infigen (FB) acknowledges the current importance of gas and coal-fired generation, however with new developments like the Bodangora wind farm it is anticipated that the generation mix will gradually shift to cleaner sources of electricity generation. Hopefully one day NSW will be able share in some of the same windfall that South Australia has experienced over recent years.
