Exmouth Wind-Diesel System

Exmouth, an isolated coastal town on the North West Cape, was supplied by a diesel fuelled electricity system until the installation of three Western Australian designed and manufactured wind turbines in 2002.

The mini wind farm was built to reduce reliance on diesel fuel and to harness the power of the wind.

The township has a population of approximately 2400 people and is a popular tourist destination.

Because the area is prone to tropical cyclones, such as Cyclone Vance which devastated the town in 1999, small turbines were designed to be lowered prior to an advancing cyclone. Each turbine takes about 20 minutes to lower using a heavy vehicle and a tow cable.

The wind turbines (60kW total capacity), which are connected to a 6MW diesel fuelled electricity grid, generate approximately 120MWh of electricity each year. This is enough to supply approximately 20 homes. This displaces approximately 35,000 litres of diesel fuel, which in turn reduces emissions of carbon dioxide by about 100 tonnes per year.

Another advantage of these turbines is their use of rare-earth super magnets to reduce the size and weight and improve the performance of the generator. This allows an increase in the power capacity of the tow-up wind turbines, which have an upper weight limit for their practical use.

The Exmouth wind turbines are coupled to the Exmouth electricity grid via an inverter. These inverters provide a high quality supply from the wind farm without the need for battery storage on the varying wind farm output.

The expertise of Westwind Turbines of Perth was used to develop the Exmouth Wind Farm project.

Did you know?

The wind turbines (60kW total capacity), generate approximately 120MWh of electricity each year.

This is enough to supply approximately 20 homes.

This displaces approximately 35,000 litres of diesel fuel, which in turn reduces emissions of carbon dioxide by roughly 100 tonnes per year.

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