Final turbine goes up at huge Queensland wind farm, but two projects remain stuck in state planning purgatory

The final turbine has been installed at Wambo Wind Farm in Queensland's Western Downs, completing a 506 megawatt project developed by Stanwell Corporation and Cubico Sustainable Investments. The farm's first stage (252 MW) began operations in late 2025 and reached full capacity in March 2026. The second stage (254 MW) is now fully installed following delivery of its final turbine in April. The project uses 83 Vestas turbines with a tip height of 247 metres and is designed to supply around 312,000 homes.

Where this fits

Wambo illustrates the materials and supply-chain dependence embedded in the renewables transition. The turbines come from Danish supplier Vestas, but Australia's wind and solar supply chains remain heavily dependent on Chinese-processed minerals, inverters and components. The broader pattern is instructive: while Wambo progresses, Cubico's two other Queensland wind projects, Marmadua and Middle Creek, have been stalled by government "call-ins" for over a year. This regulatory uncertainty compounds the cost and timeline risk that investors face when building weather-dependent generation that will require gas firming and extensive transmission upgrades to integrate into the grid.

What it means

A 506 MW wind farm takes years to build and will operate at capacity only when wind conditions allow. Australia is banking on such projects to replace retiring coal plants, yet planning delays, transmission bottlenecks and the need for synchronous firming (gas or stored energy) add invisible costs to the headline megawatt figure. The sovereignty risk is real: Australia builds the sites, but does not manufacture the core components. A firm alternative, nuclear, remains legally barred, leaving the grid dependent on commodity weather and on supply chains controlled by strategic competitors.