Christophe Grammare, AAL’s Commercial Director
AAL delivers region’s largest transformer to major South East Australia windfarm
February 19, 2019 – Award-winning global breakbulk and project heavy lift carrier, AAL, has recently delivered Victoria’s – and possibly Australia’s – largest ever transformer to the Stockyard Hill Windfarm Connection in Victoria on behalf of Australia-based global logistics solutions provider, Cargo Line International. The state-of-the art Toshiba-made unit will help to generate enough clean energy to power 390,000 average homes in the south east of the country every year with approximately 2 million tonnes of CO2 savings.
The 600MVA, 500/132kV Toshiba manufactured ‘mega-transformer’ measured approximately 14m x 5m and weighed over 305 mt. It was shipped from Shanghai to Geelong in Victoria, aboard one of AAL’s 31,000 dwt A-Class heavy-lift MPVs, the AAL Dalian. The unit was safely stowed by the crew of the Dalian into her 38m x 12.80m cargo hold no.3, harnessing her heavy-lift (700t max) port-mounted cranes for the successful loading and discharge operations.
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World Leader in PMDD Turbine Technology, Goldwind Australia, operates the Stockyard Hill Windfarm Connection with support from Mondo, the commercial energy division of AusNet Services which owns and represents the Victoria electricity network. Construction of the windfarm commenced May 2018 and consists of 149 wind turbines that, as well as 530 MW of renewable energy, will provide significant environmental, community and economic benefits to the whole region. The transformer will be installed at the windfarm’s brilliantly-named ‘Haunted Gully’ Terminal Station in Lismore about 170km west of Melbourne.
Christophe Grammare, AAL’s Commercial Director, commented: “As Australia’s economy continues to perform well, with a supportive global environment and strong domestic demand set to maintain this growth for 2019, AAL is delighted to be part of a project that will have wide-reaching economic and community benefits. We’re also proud to contribute to such an important green power project and reinforce our reputation as carrier of choice for a growing number of Australia’s largest renewable energy projects.”
Bronwen Grabe, Cargo Line International’s Project Manager added: “Being entrusted by Toshiba International to handle the end to end Freight Forwarding Scope of this project has been a privilege. This project was years in the making and was a remarkable success which can be attributable to the professionalism and dedication of the Project Team at Cargo Line International achieving excellence. As an Australian owned company, we are proud to assist in a project that directly benefits and impacts the community and the environment.”
Dennis Freedman, Head of Infrastructure Development at AusNet Services, said: “The successful delivery of this transformer marks a huge milestone for this significant renewable energy project. It’s a great achievement and we want to thank everyone involved. In many ways this delivery represents the project as a whole – the importance of great relationships and successful collaboration with our delivery partners and the client.”
