Work has begun in earnest on the $400 million White Rock Wind Farm west of Glen Innes in New South Wales, which is set to create 200 jobs during construction and inject $35 million of investment directly into the local region.
Deputy Prime Minister and local MP Barnaby Joyce lended a shovel to help turn the first sod on the construction site at Goldwind Australia’s project launch. Seventy turbines will be built in the first stage of the wind farm, but planning approval has been given by the NSW Government to build 119.
The 70 turbines of the first stage will provide enough renewable energy to power about 75,000 average homes every year.
Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall told the Northern Daily Leader the ground-breaking ceremony had symbolic importance for the region.
“First with the Moree Solar Farm, and now with White Rock Wind Farm, we are at last using resources freely available to us to generate energy and keep jobs and revenue here, where the benefit is local,” Mr Marshall said.
The project is expected to be operational in the second half of 2017.
