The company said plans have now been finalised for the construction of 42 wind turbines on the Hummocks and Barunga Ranges west of Snowtown.

The wind farm, which will have a capacity of 88MW – enough to power 60,000 average South Australian houses – is Stage 1 of a possible 130-turbine project that has been approved for the site.

Final output is expected to be 350GWh (gigawatt hours) of electricity each year, saving more than 345,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually.

TrustPower chief executive Keith Tempest said Snowtown was ideally located on the transmission grid and has a superior wind resource.

“The Snowtown Stage 1 project will provide TrustPower with a 'beachhead' into the Australian electricity market," Tempest said.

“Stage 1 will use only about one-third of the available wind farm site, leaving the opportunity for further stages in the future."

The wind farm has been granted an electricity generation licence by the Essential Services Commission of South Australia.

South Australian electricity transmission company ElectraNet has also been contracted to construct the high voltage substation and a short transmission line which will connect the new wind farm into the existing ElectraNet State power grid.

The 42 Suzlon S88 2.1MW wind turbines will be built, operated and maintained under a turnkey agreement with Suzlon Energy Australia.

The turbines will be progressively commissioned between April and November 2008 and are due to be fully commissioned in late 2008.

Tempest said TrustPower had been investigating the development of wind farms in South Australia for nearly four years, but had been hampered by changes to generation licensing requirements and uncertainties over Australia's long-term commitment to legislative support for new renewable electricity generation.

Tempest said long-term energy and renewable credit agreements were now in place that would secure the wind farm's revenue stream for at least the next 10 years.

The first stage of the wind farm will employ up to 170 people during peak construction times, with four full-time employees thereafter.

TrustPower already owns and operates the Tararua Wind Farm in New Zealand, one of the largest wind farms in the southern hemisphere, and owns more than 30 hydro generation stations supplying electricity to more than 220,000 customers.