A tiny town south west of Ballarat will benefit for decades from hosting Australia's largest wind farm, proponents say.
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Hundreds of workers and trucks carrying turbine components will soon start flowing into the rural community of Rokewood - population 208 - as construction on the Golden Plains Wind Farm gets underway for completion by late 2026.
The 1,300 megawatt project - spearheaded by global clean energy enterprise TagEnergy - includes 215 wind turbines and a 300MW battery storage facility, and is expected to generate nine per cent of Victoria's total electricity demand - enough clean energy to power more than 765,000 homes.
Creating an estimated 700 jobs during construction and 72 ongoing jobs, the project is part of the state government's push to achieve 95 per cent renewable energy by 2035 and net zero emissions by 2045.
As part of the project, the Rokewood community will receive more than $300,000 towards local road safety initiatives and amenity upgrades including a new pedestrian crossing and new public toilets.
Community energy programs, near neighbour financial programs and landscape screening are also being provided.
The project has financial backing from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and major contractors include Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas and energy delivery services business Ausnet.
TagEnergy representatives officiated the first sod turning for the $2 billion, 756MW first stage of construction, and told attendees including Energy and Resources Minister Lily D'Ambrosio and Golden Plains Shire Mayor Cr Brett Cunningham "the positive outcomes will be seen for decades".
"I am sure you will all see the benefits of having such a massive project being built here - whether through the competitive electricity being delivered to the grid in Victoria and for the community, and also the creation of hundreds of qualified jobs, and upgrades of local infrastructure," global CEO and founder Franck Woitiez said.
"This wind farm will be operated by Australians, for Australians.
"I know our team here will deliver on its promises."
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TagEnergy Managing Partner for Australia Andrew Riggs acknowledged the construction phase would put a strain on local roads, but said the company had already undertaken a "large amount of works" to prevent damage from heavy transport, including intersection upgrades.
"We are a guest in the community and one of the essential elements of any project like this is to ensure we leave it better than we found it, so some of those upgrades are done already and when stage two starts [in 2024] we'll be doing a little more to the west of here.
"Through the course of the project, we go out periodically and improve [the roads and pavements] those - our contractors are contractually obliged to do it, we're obliged to do it from a corporate citizen point of view and we take that obligation very seriously.
"Safety is number one - the whole project is pointless if one person comes to harm."
Mr Riggs confirmed all transmission infrastructure required for the project to operate at full capacity is included in existing approvals.
"We have a very short section of transmission line down to the existing 500kV network and it's all on property that's owned by landowners that are involved by the project.
"That line takes the power from nearby to here down to the transmission line then off to the load centres in Melbourne or out at Portland."
Mayor Cr Cunningham said the project "supports the council's vision for the shire" in terms of "bringing more business and industry in."
Clean Energy Finance Corporation CEO Ian Learmonth called the wind farm an "era-defining" project that would "go a long way to help Australia reduce its emissions".
"To reach net zero by 2050, we are going to need something like 124 gigawatts of large-scale renewables, and to reach 82 per cent renewables - which is the federal government's ambition - we would need to build out something like 27 gigawatts of large-scale renewables which would translate to a modest-sized wind farm being built every month between now and 2030."
The next major milestone for the project will be the arrival of turbine components in October 2023 followed by first energisation to the grid in September 2024.
A Community Reference Group has been established to oversee community engagement on the project and establish a Community Grants Program for not-for-profit community groups.
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