Dundonnell Wind Farm is at

Dundonnell Dundonnell (Gaelic: Achadh Dà Dhòmhnaill) is a village in Ross and Cromarty, Scotland, on the south side of Little Loch Broom and at the foot of An Teallach, right at the north of the area commonly known as the " Great Wilderness". It is situa ...

, northeast of

Mortlake Mortlake is a suburban district of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the south bank of the River Thames between Kew and Barnes, London, Barnes. Historically it was part of Surrey and until 1965 was in the Municipal Borough of Barnes ...

in the Australian state of

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

. Construction began in January 2019 and was completed in 2020 with 80

Vestas Vestas Wind Systems A/S is a Danish manufacturer, seller, installer, and servicer of wind turbines that was founded in 1945. The company operates manufacturing plants in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, India, Italy, Romania, the Un ...

wind turbines with a capacity to generate 336MW of electricity. The drive trains and hubs were assembled at the former

Ford Australia Ford Motor Company of Australia Limited (known by its trading name Ford Australia) is the Australian subsidiary of Automotive industry in the United States, United States–based automaker Ford Motor Company. It was founded in 1925 as an Austral ...

site in

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung language, Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in Victoria, Australia, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River (Victo ...

. The wind farm has contracts to supply 37% of its output to the

government of Victoria The Victoria State Government, also referred to as the Victorian Government, is the Executive (government), executive government of the Australian state of Victoria (Australia), Victoria. As a parliamentary system, parliamentary constitutiona ...

and 50% to

Snowy Hydro Snowy Hydro Limited is an electricity generation and retailing company in Australia that owns, manages, and maintains the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme that consists of nine hydro-electric power stations and sixteen large dams connected ...

. It is being developed by

Tilt Renewables Tilt Renewables Pty Ltd is an Australian electricity generation company. It was previously dual listed on the New Zealand Exchange, New Zealand stock exchange and Australian Securities Exchange, Australian stock exchange. As of 2022, the Powerin ...

. The wind farm connects to the grid via 38 kilometres of 220kV overhead transmission line to a substation near the Mortlake Power Station. A 327 tonne transformer transported at night took four nights to reach Dundonnell from

Glen Waverley Glen Waverley is an eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located southeast of the Melbourne central business district. It is the council seat of the City of Monash local government area and a prominent suburban commercial distric ...

in eastern

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

in August 2019. It was manufactured there by the

Wilson Transformer Company Jack Wilson (1905–1972) was an Australian engineer. The company he founded, Wilson Transformer Company, continues to manufacture electrical transformers in Australia. Early life Wilson was born on 16 May 1905 at Batley, Yorkshire in England. A ...

. The developer spent $80 million to connect the wind farm to the main 500 kV grid via a 38 km 220 kV Ausnet line, avoiding the connection problems many other generating stations have in the interior. Full commissioning was delayed in mid-2020 due to concerns of the

Australian Energy Market Operator The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) performs an array of gas and electricity market, operational, development and planning functions. It manages the National Electricity Market (NEM), the Wholesale Electricity Market (WA) (WEM) and the ...

(AEMO), despite it being commissioned according to a plan negotiated with AEMO in 2018.

References

{{Victoria-stub Wind farms in Victoria (state)