Cost Down, Size up or is it? Wind power size increase

1990 Shark Bay Denham wind turbine was one of the first wind power grid connections I saw while working in the area. 2021 update "Three of the four turbines have been in use for almost 25 years. One has been in operation for 14 years.Two of the four turbines are still operational, while a third is undergoing maintenance. A fourth is significantly damaged and expected to be permanently decommissioned."



Clearly some parts of the cost of wind have come down! Chatting over the weekend with some farmers who have 100 plus wind turbine concrete bases with about 70 tonnes of concrete on their farmland. The payments they get are fine. The future costs they have may not be?

In ten years or less the size of wind turbines should be a bit bigger than current is a given certainty. The first one in Denham is tiny by today's new larger ones. The 2016 size in the example above is well out of date already. Its. Current 8 to 12 mw for example. With current avg installed at over 3mw

The first one I know of in Denham was tiny. It Concrete footing may have been much much smaller than todays of course. I cannot see if the assumed 20 odd tonnes of concrete footing has been removed. I assume its still in the ground.

Back to our farm land in Western Vic and other places around our country. The 420 kWh HRL Morrison and Malakoff Corporation, Commissioned: 2012 for example is "The wind farm comprises 140 Vestas V112-3.0MW wind turbines manufactured in Denmark"

The Golden Plains wind farm in Victoria is just months from producing its first electricity, and the developer says it has already started work on expanding the facility. Link "Turbine foundations consisting of concrete gravity or rock anchor foundations with a depth of approximately 3.5 m and a diameter of 20 to 25 m"

The foundation at Denham was a fraction of that size and doesn't support any wind power now at all!

Will the current Turbine foundations support new wind power in 10- 20 or 30 years time? I personally doubt it!

Will the 140 times 20 to 25 metre 70 tonne concrete foundations of the Golden plains wind farm be removed from the farmland they are on now or are they a permanent monument to wind long after the power stops?

It that aspect of wind farms accounted for. The farmers I spoke were going to check the contracts they have. The Golden Plains Enviromental impact document has nothing about decommissioning?


Emailed asking about these planning aspects.