The 500-turbine installation is planned to produce enough electricity for 400 000 homes and slash greenhouse emissions by 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

Construction of the wind farm could begin this year and when fully operational it could meet 4.5% of electricity demand in NSW.

Under the joint venture, Macquarie and Conergy’s Australian subsidiary Epuron will each take a 50% stake in the proposed development to build the Silverton wind farm.

Epuron executive director Andrew Durran said in a statement on Tuesday that it would be one of the largest wind farms in the world with almost 1000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity.

“If the demand is there we could accelerate the building and complete it in three years, otherwise we can slow down and complete it over four to five years,” Durran said.

“It has an excellent wind resource, it has a very strong transmission system and it has got the largest energy load.”

The project, estimated to cost about $2 billion when first announced in October, is awaiting development approval from the NSW Government.

It could be operational in stages by late 2009.