McElligotts Tas were privileged to have contributed to the new wind turbines for Mortlake South Wind Farm in Victoria’s Western District in 2020. This new hub for renewable energy will power up to 117,000 Victorian homes once it is completed and commissioned sometime in the first half of 2021. At $275 million, the farm was one of the six winners of the Victorian government’s renewable energy auction in 2018 and is being built by the energy groups Nordex and Acciona Windpower.
The wind turbines were originally in 140 sections, 64 sections were fabricated by Hayward’s Steel Fabrication, a long-time customer of McElligotts Tasmania. The remaining sections were completed in Portland Victoria by Kepple Prince Engineering in Portland Victoria. McElligotts Tas was tasked with the abrasive blasting and application of the coating system supplied by Akzonobel. The Internals were coated with a high build epoxy and the externals were coated with high build epoxy and polyurethane. It was an interesting challenge firstly fitting the 4.3m dia x 35m sections in our workshop then having to rotate them using a flange ring to complete the coating system to the high global standard required on these projects. We completed our portion of the project in August 2020.
Each of the 35 wind turbine towers is an incredible structure, both in scale and its potential to generate large amounts of clean energy. The turbines individually generate 4.5MW of energy, adding up to an impressive 157.5MW across the entire Mortlake South Wind Farm.
The farm will be connected to the grid via an underground transmission line, a first for the State of Victoria. The team at McElligotts Tas were proud to have contributed towards a project that promises a cleaner environmental future and energy for hundreds of thousands of people.
