Australia plans to install wind turbines at a research station near the South Pole. Credit: Peter Magill, Australian Antarctic Division

The world’s mightiest winds are to power a new wind farm in Antarctica, which should have the strongest turbines with the highest energy yield of any in the world. The system will provide four-fifths of the energy needs of an Australian research station in the Antarctic Circle, greatly reducing its environmental impact.

Australia’s environment minister Robert Hill claims this is the first serious attempt to obtain a significant electricity supply from the world’s most powerful sustained winds. The Australian government plans to install the U.S.$2.3 million wind farm at its Mawson Station, one of the country’s four permanent Antarctic research stations by March 2003. It will generate 900 kilowatts (kW) of energy; the largest existing Antarctic wind farm produces 20 kW.

The system’s three turbines will have blades 30 meters (m) in diameter mounted on towers 34 m high. They will operate in winds of up to 130 kilometers/hour (km/h) before automatically shutting down. But they must be able to withstand gusts of 250 km/h or more, explains Peter Magill, an engineer at the Australian Antarctic Division, and resist temperatures down to –36 °C.

Magill expects the wind farm to meet 80% of Mawson’s energy demands. “For the other 20%, we will have to run some diesel generation until hydrogen storage/fuel cell technology becomes available in the near future when we hope to run the station from renewable energy all the time.” Because the station currently receives 800,000 liters of diesel every year by ship, the switch to wind power will reduce greenhouse gas production and the risk of pollution.

“If we only have to resupply the station every five years, say, rather than every year, then the risk of oil spills when we pump the bulk fuel ashore will be dramatically reduced,” Magill explains. The station’s operating costs will fall eventually, he adds. —MARIA BURKE