The German manufacturer will supply 90 gearless 3MW turbines to Trustpower for its Snowtown II wind farm, 140km north of Adelaide. The New Zealand-based power company expects to bring the 270MW project – set to be Australia’s largest wind farm - online in 2014.

The AUD$439 million wind farm development, which reached financial close today, will be the first in Australia to use direct drive turbines. When online, it will generate enough electricity to supply 180,000 homes.

“Siemens has already installed two wind power plants in New Zealand. The West Wind project provides clean electric power to nearly 70,000 households, without any subsidies at all. Now, we are looking forward to entering the Australian market”, said Felix Ferlemann, CEO of the Wind Power Division at Siemens Energy.

Early preparations have already commenced with construction of the wind farm due to start next month. Siemens will provide a full turnkey service under its contract with Trustpower: it will engineer, procure, construct and maintain a full turnkey solution for the 90 wind turbines including the substation, switchgear and transformers to connect the wind farmto the grid.

The Snowtown II wind farm will cement South Australia as the lead generator of renewable energy across the nation. South Australia has already exceeded Australia’s 20% by 2020 renewable energy target, with 26% of the state’s electricity now generated by wind. South Australia has now set a target of 33% renewable energy by 2020.