Toora Wind Farm, Victoria (Australia)
Encyclopedia
Wind power
Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form of energy, such as using wind turbines to make electricity, windmills for mechanical power, windpumps for water pumping or drainage, or sails to propel ships....
station at Toora
Toora, Victoria
Toora is a small farming town in Victoria, Australia whose main industry is dairy farming. It is located at the top of Corner Inlet opposite Wilsons Promontory National Park...
in South Gippsland
Gippsland
Gippsland is a large rural region in Victoria, Australia. It begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border, lying between the Great Dividing Range to the north and Bass Strait to the south...
, Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. It is located is north of Wilsons Promontory
Wilsons Promontory
Wilsons Promontory is a peninsula that forms the southernmost part of the Australian mainland and is located at . South Point at is the southernmost tip of Wilsons Promontory and hence of mainland Australia...
and 150km SE of Melbourne. The wind farm is on a ridge overlooking the small town of Toora.
Toora has 12 wind turbines, each of 1.75 MW rated capacity, with a total generating
Electricity generation
Electricity generation is the process of generating electric energy from other forms of energy.The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered during the 1820s and early 1830s by the British scientist Michael Faraday...
capacity of 21 MW of electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
. The power station was completed in 2002.
As of May 2008, it is owned by Transfield Services Infrastructure Fund. Danish company Vestas Wind Systems, and one of the world's largest turbine manufacturers, constructed the wind farm.
Good viewing and photography points are available on a road that passes right by the wind farm. From some of these views of the coastal plain, the Strzelecki Ranges
Strzelecki Ranges
Strzelecki Ranges, also known as Strzelecki Hills is a low mountain range in the Gippsland region of south-eastern Australia between the Latrobe Valley to the north and Bass Strait to the south...
, and Wilsons Promontory can be combined with views of the turbines. Accommodation is available in a caravan park at Toora.
One of Toora's turbines can power up to 6,600 homes.