Decmil Group has bagged an A$72m ($50.76m) balance of plant works contract for the 180MW Warradarge Wind Farm in Western Australia.
Image: The Warradarge Wind Farm will be equipped with turbines supplied by Vestas. Photo: courtesy of Vestas.
The contract to the Australian construction engineering company was awarded by Vestas, the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor of the Warradarge Wind Farm.
The wind farm, which will be built near Eneabba, is owned by Bright Energy Investments (BEI), a partnership between Synergy, global infrastructure investment fund DIF, and Australian industry super fund Cbus.
Under its contract, Decmil will be responsible for the design and construction of the civil and electrical balance of plant of the wind project. Included in these are works to be carried out pertaining to wind turbine bases, site cabling, 55km of access tracks, switch room and substation.
A 10km-long transmission line from the sub-station of the Warradarge Wind Farm to the network connection point near Eneabba will be laid by Western Power.
Decmil said that the works under its contract will begin immediately and are anticipated to be wrapped up by September 2020.
The Warradarge Wind Farm will feature 51 V136-3.45 MW turbines delivered in 3.6MW power optimized mode to be supplied by Vestas. The turbines will be among the largest to be installed in the state, with a tip height of 152m, to go along with blade lengths of 66m.
Upon commissioning of the project, which is likely to be in the third quarter of 2020, Vestas will begin an up to 30-year Active Output Management 5000 (AOM 5000) service agreement.
In December 2018, the Western Australian government gave its go-ahead for start of construction on the Warradarge Wind Farm, which is expected to create up to 200 jobs.
Once commissioned, the wind farm is projected to meet the average annual power consumption needs of 135,000 Western Australian homes.
The Warradarge Wind Farm joins the BEI portfolio made up of the 35.4MW Albany Grasmere Wind Farm near Albany and the 10MW Greenough River Solar Farm near Geraldton, located nearly 50km southeast of Geraldton.