Port Augusta Wind Farm (PAREP)

PAREP is one of the new breeds of renewable projects, designed to provide predictable power, more uniformly across the day. Upon completion, it has become one of the Southern Hemisphere´s largest hybrid renewable power stations.

The Port Augusta Renewable Energy Park (PAREP) is a combined wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) hybrid project. It is one of the new breeds of renewable projects designed to provide predictable power more uniformly across the day and upon completion, it has become one of the largest hybrid renewable power stations.

Located approximately 8 km south-east of Port Augusta in South Australia, the project occupies approximately 5,400 hectares of land running from Port Paterson in the North to Winninowie in the South and spans across the A1 Augusta Highway. Port Augusta Wind Farm comprises of 50 wind turbines with associated electrical infrastructure, to produce a total installed capacity of almost 210 megawatts (MW) of clean renewable energy. A new 275 kV substation and export cable will connect the project into the South Australian transmission network via Davenport Substation.

Once in commercial operation, PAREP will generate clean electricity for around 25 years prior to being either decommissioned or redeveloped. The combined PAREP project will produce 900 gigawatt hours (GWh) per annum which is enough to power 180,000 households each year with an emissions saving of approximately 400,000 metric tonnes of CO₂ annually.

NKT Australia were engaged to provide power cable accessories for the critical connections required within the wind farm portion of PAREP´s 33 kV network. The cable accessory product supply was paired with installation services and high voltage testing for the underground network, providing our customers and PAREP stake-holders the complete package with regard to project requirements.

The timing of the Port Augusta Wind Farm project coincided with Australia´s worst COVID-19 outbreak, with most states and territories enforcing local travel restrictions that severely hampered progress at a critical stage of the schedule. The significant challenges of interstate travel restrictions and associated supply chain delays were felt by all stakeholders involved in the project. However, even with severely constrained resources and time, NKT and the extended project team were able to successfully complete the required scope of works within initially planned and agreed timeframes, while ensuring high quality outputs along the way.