Ten Mile Lagoon Wind Farm facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Ten Mile Lagoon Wind Farm |
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The Ten Mile Lagoon Wind Farm is a special place near Esperance in Western Australia. It sits on a hill right by the coast, about 16 kilometers (10 miles) west of the town. This spot is perfect because it gets a lot of strong, steady winds, known as the Roaring Forties.
This wind farm is very important because it was Australia's very first commercial wind farm that is still working today! It started operating in October 1993. Before this, a smaller test wind farm worked well at Salmon Beach, which showed that wind power could be a great idea for Esperance.
What is the Ten Mile Lagoon Wind Farm?
The Ten Mile Lagoon Wind Farm uses nine large machines called wind turbines. Each turbine can make 225 kilowatts (kW) of electricity. If you add all of them together, the farm can make just over 2 Megawatts (MW) of power. To give you an idea, 1 Megawatt is 1,000 kilowatts, so 2 MW is 2,000 kilowatts! This is enough power to help run many homes and businesses.
How Does it Help Esperance?
Esperance is a town that is not connected to the main electricity grid that supplies power to most big cities. This means it has to make its own electricity. For a long time, all the power for Esperance and nearby areas came from a power station that used diesel fuel.
The Ten Mile Lagoon Wind Farm now works together with the diesel power station. It helps to make electricity for the community. When the wind blows, the wind turbines create clean energy, which means the diesel power station doesn't have to work as hard. This is good for the environment and helps save fuel.
Protecting the Environment
When the wind farm was built, a lot of care was taken to make sure it didn't harm the natural environment around it. Engineers and builders worked hard to design and build the farm in a way that caused the least possible disturbance to the beautiful coastal area. This shows that we can use new technologies like wind power while also looking after our planet.
