Wellington, March 18 NZPA - New Zealand electricity generator Meridian Energy Ltd has entered a joint venture with big Australian company AGL Energy Ltd (AGL) to build the $A800m Macarthur Wind Farm in south-west Victoria.

AGL will take all of the energy output and wind energy certificates from the wind farm, made up of 174 Suzlon S88 wind turbines with a total capacity of 365MW, which is expected to deliver about 945 gigawatt hours of electricity each year.

Construction is expected to take about 3 years, but the venture is still dependent on meeting a series of conditions, including approval by the boards of both companies, Australian energy websites reported.

Meridian late last year missed out on a resource consent for its Project Hayes development of 176 turbines with the ability to generate up to 630MW of power on the Lammermoor Range in Central Otago.