The Hornsdale Wind Farm is an electricity generator in the locality of Hornsdale in the south-west of the Narien Range, north of Jamestown,

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

. It consists of 99

wind turbines A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. Wi ...

with a generation capacity of . The plant is owned and operated by

Neoen Neoen is a French producer of exclusively renewable energy headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 2008, it develops, finances, builds and operates solar power plants, wind farms and energy storage solutions. As at 31 December 2021, the com ...

, a French renewable energy company. The electricity generated by Hornsdale Wind Farm is contracted to be supplied to the

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. I ...

Construction

The "Balance of Plant" civil engineering and site works for the wind farm was performed by

Catcon Catcon is an Australian construction and civil engineering company based in Adelaide, South Australia. It was rated at #50 in South Australia's "Top 100 companies" in 2015. Catcon is the company responsible for the Bolivar interchange and Little ...

for all three stages of construction. The wind turbine generators were imported from Denmark, and the towers from Vietnam. They were commissioned by Siemens Australia. Before the whole wind farm was commissioned, Hornsdale was generating 86 MW immediately prior to the

2016 South Australian blackout The South Australian blackout of 2016 was a widespread power outage in South Australia that occurred as a result of storm damage to electricity transmission infrastructure on 28 September 2016. The cascading failure of the electricity transmissio ...

in September 2016.

Operation

The wind farm supplies 1 TWh/year to the 275 kV grid from 3.2 MW direct-drive turbines (no gearbox). The 100 MW Phase 2 tested supplying 6 out of 8

grid services Ancillary services are the services necessary to support the transmission of electric power from generators to consumers given the obligations of control areas and transmission utilities within those control areas to maintain reliable operations of ...

between August 2017 and February 2018.

Artwork

Two of the towers feature paintings by people from the indigenous peoples of the region. Jessica Turner is a

Nukunu Nukunu are an Aboriginal Australian people of South Australia, living around the Spencer Gulf area. In the years after British colonisation of South Australia, the area was developed to contain the cities of Port Pirie and Port Augusta. Name Bot ...

woman whose artwork represents the story of the serpent's role in forming aspects of the landscape, particularly waterholes. Chris Angrave and Louise Brown are

Ngadjuri The Ngadjuri people are a group of Aboriginal Australian people whose traditional lands lie in the mid north of South Australia with a territory extending from Gawler in the south to Orroroo in the Flinders Ranges in the north. Name Their ethno ...

people who depicted how the ''Mungiura'' were found in hilly country, peering over the top of windbreaks before a storm, and blowing hard, which caused a whirly wind.

Hornsdale Power Reserve

The

Hornsdale Power Reserve Hornsdale Power Reserve is a 150 MW (194 MWh) grid-connected energy storage system owned by Neoen co-located with the Hornsdale Wind Farm in the Mid North region of South Australia, also owned by Neoen. The original installation in 2017 was the ...

is a grid-connected battery complex co-located with the Hornsdale Wind Farm. It was built by

Tesla, Inc. Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Tesla designs and manufactures electric vehicles (electric cars and trucks), battery energy storage from home to grid- ...

for a cost to Tesla of about US$50 million. It is owned and operated by Neoen, with the government having the right to call on the stored power under certain circumstances. It provides a total of of storage capable of discharge at into the power grid. It provides several services to the grid: *70 MW running for 10 minutes (11.7 MWh) is contracted to the government to provide stability to the grid (

) and prevent load-shedding blackouts while other generators are started in the event of sudden drops in wind or other network issues. This service has reduced the cost of grid services to the Australian Energy Market Operator by 90%. *30 MW for 3 hours (90 MWh) is used by Neoen for

load management Load management, also known as demand-side management (DSM), is the process of balancing the supply of electricity on the network with the electrical load by adjusting or controlling the load rather than the power station output. This can be ach ...

to store energy when prices are low and sell it when demand is high. The battery construction was completed and testing began on 25 November 2017. It was connected to the grid on 1 December 2017. This easily beat

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The ...

's wager of "100 days from contract signature", which started when a grid connection agreement was signed with

ElectraNet Electranet is a proposed smart electric grid which would allow people to sell electricity into the grid without any artificial caps. It was proposed in an op-ed article Al Gore wrote in a "My Turn" column for ''Newsweek'' in 2006. Like the inter ...

on 29 September 2017. Tesla had already begun construction, and some units were already operational by the time the contract was signed. Due to the project's success and the area's demand for stable electricity output, the project was expanded by 50% in November 2019. The upgraded system is capable of discharge at into the power grid.

References

External links

Current wind conditions
{{Wind farms in Australia Wind farms in South Australia