Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny has signed off on the Warracknabeal Energy Park, five months after its environmental impact report was approved. The approval was the last required by Victorian authorities, meaning the project now goes to the federal environment minister for final checks.
Developer WestWind Energy plans to build 219 turbines across 26,000 hectares of farmland just west of Warracknabeal and north of Horsham, more than 300 kilometres north-west of Melbourne. Two 300-megawatt battery energy storage systems would also be installed.
The developer says the energy park would deliver 1.5 gigawatts of renewable energy, enough to power 1.2 million homes. That would make it the largest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere, narrowly overtaking the Golden Plains Wind Farm west of Geelong, which has 215 turbines and a 1.33 gigawatt capacity.
The final Victorian approval comes about three weeks before the Labor government enters caretaker mode ahead of the November state election.
During the Environment Effects Statement process, which began in 2024, 70 community responses were received. Thirty submissions were generally positive about social impacts, job opportunities, community development, sustainability and population growth. A similar number cited concerns about visual amenity, a strain on housing and worker accommodation, and the impact on local flora and fauna.
The project is expected to create close to 950 jobs during construction.
Farmer Craig Henderson, who owns land where the turbines would be built, called the wind farm "extremely positive" for the town of Warracknabeal, which has been shrinking over recent decades. He said there had been "no pressure" on him to get the project over the line, and that his two stipulations were that it "needed to be symmetrically laid out for the way we farm and commercially viable."