Responding to the country’s growing need for clean and affordable energy, Western Australia’s largest wind farm, Collgar, are looking at new means to reduce carbon emissions.
Collgar Renewables was officially launched on 25 November 2022 and was established to broaden its energy development portfolio and to find meaningful solutions towards decarbonisation.
“With the WA government’s plans to cut emissions by 80 per cent below 2020 levels by 2030 our timing to diversify has been spot on, and we know this new approach will spur interest from the clean energy and investor market.” says CEO Thomas Scott-Morey.
Scott-Morey states: ‘The Australian Government commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, will assist in Collgar’s development of new renewable energy infrastructure projects such as Wind and Solar farms and other clean energy solutions’.
Collgar Renewables is currently exploring a range of diverse projects, including enhancement opportunities, expansion potential, exciting new renewable energy asset prospects and joint venture opportunities.
‘The Collgar team is comprised of experienced and committed individuals with specialised expertise who collaborate, innovate and produce consistently superior results’, he said, ‘we are well placed to expand on our success with Collgar Wind Farm and continue to grow Australia’s renewable energy assets’.
Collgar recently made aerodynamic improvements to Collgar Wind Farm’s turbines and completed a major technical upgrade to the software driving them, lifting the wind farm’s generation capacity by over seven per cent, to 222MW.
The wind farm generates and delivers clean, renewable electricity into the South West Interconnected System (SWIS) each year, thereby making a major contribution to Western Australia’s greenhouse gas reductions. At full power, the wind energy created displaces approximately 0.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to taking approximately 210,000 cars off the road each year or the equivalent carbon reduction of planting 9 million trees.
The wind farm has also been named Sector Leader for Renewable Power, and ranked 13th out of 649 global infrastructure participants in GRESB’s 2022 sustainability benchmark assessment. Collgar is proud to be recognised as a leader in ESG management and performance for the second year in a row.
ABOUT Collgar Renewables
Collgar Renewables was launched at Perth City Farm on 25 November 2022, and develops, owns, and operates renewable energy assets in order to contribute to the supply of clean energy to Western Australia. Collgar was honoured that the Hon Mia Davies MLA was in attendance as a guest.
Collgar Renewables operates WA’s largest wind farm located 25km south-east of Merredin. Collgar Wind Farm is a $750m renewable energy project and produced its first energy on 14 May 2011. The wind farm is built over a land envelope of 18,000 hectares and comprises 111 wind turbines with a total power production capacity of 222MW.
Both Collgar Renewables and Collgar Wind Farm are wholly owned by the Retail Employees Superannuation Trust (Rest). Rest is one of the largest profit-to-member superannuation funds in Australia by membership, with around 1.9 million members and around $66 billion in funds under management (as at 30 September 2022). Rest was established in 1988 and is open to all Australians. For more information visit www.rest.com.au .
