Acciona Energía, a Spanish renewable energy company, has begun construction on the MacIntyre complex, a 1,026 MW wind farm in Queensland, Australia. MacIntyre and Karara wind farms are part of the $1.4 billion wind complex. MacIntyre is a 923 MW wind farm in which ACCIONA Energía owns a 70 per cent share and Ark Energy owns the remaining 30 per cent. MacIntyre will be Acciona Energa’s largest wind farm in the world when it is completed, and it will boost the company’s renewable output capacity in Australia. CleanCo, Queensland’s public utility corporation, operates the Karara wind farm.
The MacIntyre wind farm will be operated by ACCIONA Energía, while the Karara wind farm will be managed by CleanCo. Both wind farms will have 180 Nordex Delta 4000 turbines and are planned to be completed in 2024. The complex will generate enough clean energy to power 700,000 homes while displacing carbon emissions by nearly three million tonnes each year. The wind project will also support Queensland’s decarbonisation goals.
In February 2022, Acciona Energia acquired Red-Tailed Hawk, a 350 MWac solar PV project in the US, from Avondale Solar and Solar Plus Development. The project would be developed by Avondale Solar’s subsidiary, AP Solar Holdings, in collaboration with Solar Plus Development in Houston, Texas. The development phase of Red-Tailed Hawk is planned to begin in the third quarter of 2022, with the facility opening in 2024. The construction of the project would cost $ 460 million.
REGlobal’s Views: With this massive wind energy complex, Acciona will get expand its share in the Australian market by a sizeable margin. Australia has many large upcoming solar, wind, storage and hydrogen based projects, owing to investor interest in this untapped market and a huge potential for clean power development.
