Meridian joins wind farm venture

New Zealand electricity generator Meridian Energy has entered a joint venture with big Australian company AGL Energy (AGL) to build the $A800 million (NZ$1034m) Macarthur Wind Farm in south-west Victoria.

AGL will take all of the energy output and wind energy certificates from the wind farm, made up of 174 wind turbines with a total capacity of 365MW, which is expected to deliver about 945 gigawatt hours of electricity each year.

Construction is expected to take about three years, but the venture is still dependent on meeting a series of conditions, Australian energy websites reported.

Meridian late last year missed out on a resource consent for its Project Hayes development of 176 turbines with the ability to generate up to 630MW of power in Central Otago.

- NZPA