The Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, Shane Rattenbury has announced that 28 wind turbines at the Sapphire One wind farm in regional NSW are now feeding renewable electricity into the national grid as part of the ACT’s 100 per cent renewable electricity target.
The Minister said the ACT-supported part of Sapphire would power around 48,000 homes, contributing about 12 per cent towards the renewable electricity target.
“Once again, the ACT is leading the way by reaching key milestones as we progress towards our ambitious clean energy future,” Mr Rattenbury said.
He said the wind farm was 18 km west of Glenn Innes in the Northern Tablelands of NSW and was one of two successful projects in the ACT’s 2015 second wind auction.
Mr Rattenbury said once it was complete, it would be largest in the State and would bring many local investment benefits.
“As we have seen with other renewables projects, there will be significant flow-on benefits to the Canberra region through this wind farm,” he said.
“The wind farm is owned by CWP Renewables, which has so far developed over 1,400 megawatts of renewable energy capacity in Australia.”
Mr Rattenbury said that as part of winning its ACT feed-in tariff entitlement, CWP Renewables had moved its Asset and Operations Centre to Canberra, and had agreed to employ at least 24 people by 2022.
“CWP Renewables is also establishing an investment model, which gives the local community an opportunity to invest in the wind farm,” the Minister said.
“This model has been successfully used in other ACT-supported wind farm developments in Australia.”
