
Clarke Creek Wind Farm
HIG entered into an agreement as the preferred consultant for the delivery of transport planning and design of the logistics route from the Port of Gladstone to Clarke Creek for wind turbine components, including blades and tower components.
Client
Goldwind Australia, Windlab Australia and Squadron Energy
Our Project Mission



The Clarke Creek Integrated Wind, Solar and Battery Power Station project is a private partnership initiative between Lancour Energy and Goldwind Australia. The windfarm is designed to have a generation capacity of 800MW. Once operational, the wind farm production will be enough to power around 590,000 Queensland homes, supplying around 4% of Queensland’s electricity, and making a large contribution to the achievement of the Queensland Renewable Energy Target. The Clarke Creek wind and solar farm project is planned to be developed approximately 150km south of Mackay and 150km north of Rockhampton, in the Isaac Shire and Livingstone Shire regions in Central Queensland, Australia.
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The route required the horizontal and vertical assessment of four separate vehicle configurations along the 300km route and the detail design of eight accesses and 26 stopping and passing bays. The works also included the widening of 13 separate curves through the Marlborough Range and upgrades to six critical intersections through Gladstone and Rockhampton. The agreement was entered into in July 2019 and finished August 2020.
Due to the uniqueness of the vehicle configurations and their loads, each was developed in AutoCAD Vehicle Tracking software. The vehicles paths of each of these vehicles were utilised in various components of the detailed designs completed along the proposed routes.
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The transport route weaved its way through a number of built up city locations including Gladstone and Rockhampton as well as rugged regional areas including tight corridors lined by trees and on roads through tight road cuttings. HIG proposed a number of solutions including providing 500mm risers on traffic poles, shortening of outreaches, rotating mast arms temporarily, benching of rock cuttings and other options along with planning for designated planned times for transport through key sections of the route. These solutions were implemented alongside curve redesigns and passing lanes. Bridges along the route were checked for design capacity for the foreseen axle loads.
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HIG close working relationship with DTMR design and electrical staff enabled a quick turnaround for the DTMR Works in State Controlled Road Reserve approved, thereby enabling construction to start and Goldwing time frames to be met.