Billion-dollar wind farm project proposed

27 Responses to “Billion-dollar wind farm project proposed”

1. Pete Babcock on January 9th, 2009 10:04 am 1

   Thank God for a credit crunch. Another scam wind farm developer about to rip a community apart!

   Google landholder contract review and all the dirty details appear. A con on the taxpayer, a con on the consumer and a con on the landholder who ends up owning the turbines and having to decommission them at currently $1,000,000 each …

   Toss turbines and go solar!
2. phil on January 9th, 2009 10:24 am 2

   Cant be much money in farming if these clowns want to cover their land in wind turbines!
   I wonder do they have any idea on the efficiency of them, and how much of a rip off their is to the consumer for the minimal amount of power that comes from them?
   Why should consumers be forced to buy power generated at times when it is not needed? but still fed into the grid. what a stupid idea. We need reliable supply when it is needed not at the whims of the wind. Companies should not be payed for excess power when it is not needed, if a wind farm produces power at midnight but none through the day then why should they be guaranteed a price for it? even if it is useless.
   We need reliable supply, that industry and consumers can rely on, not a far fetched scam.
3. John on January 9th, 2009 11:06 am 3

   Wind turbines generate carbonless energy — not on demand but they do offset carbon emissions from fossil generators.

   The comments above are factually and technically inaccurate and I would advise anyone to research this topic fully before making their minds up.
4. Jan on January 9th, 2009 11:50 am 4

   John your response is the usual spin by a wind developer. The wind industry continues to scream for aid and yet fails to produce factual information to support its claims; no wind speed data ever released, no production figures on a hourly basis, no comment on the landholder contracts, which leaves them owning the turbines and having to pull them down. All wind companies in Australia are shelf compnaies for their parent companies off shore ie acciona…west wind energy.…
5. Mandy on January 9th, 2009 11:53 am 5

   If you think wind turbines are the answer to financial woes, go to Waubra in Vic, the trouble their from the introduction of turbines has ruined the community. The land values are totally shot to pieces and the landholder who have the turbines now realise that their been conned by wind Power pty ltd, a $100 company
6. phil on January 9th, 2009 12:29 pm 6

   John, if you think my comment wasnt accurate could you please provide evidence that coal and gas powered generation stops or slows when wind power is working?
   I bet you cant. Sure it might happen in state labor govt reports, but anything can, go to the generating graphs from all australian generators and you will soon find you have no evidence to back up your rubbish claims with.
   Wind is a fraud designed to applease city votors who cant be bothered doing the research and finding if it is really working, they rely on the propaganda of wind companies and governments who would fool them.
7. jai on January 9th, 2009 12:34 pm 7

   As someone who has worked in the wind industry for a few years now, I really dont understand all the doom and gloom. I am currently working on waubra project and the community seems to be very accepting and thankfull for the wind turbines. Landholders recieve considerable financial benefits from having turbines on their land, the windfarms employ numerous locals and the financial injection into the local community is massive. The contractors support local community and sporting clubs and use many local contractors to make up the workforce or manufacture items for the windfarm. mostly the people against windfarms are jealous because they have missed out on a needed cash injection in a time of drought, which by the way is the main reason for any decrease in property values… With a current down turn in mining I hope windfarms go ahead in a big way to keep thousands of construction workers employed and feeding their families.….
8. mick on January 9th, 2009 7:31 pm 8

   Jai, since you have worked on the waubra project maybe you could answer the questions of why Wind Power pty ltd have had the landholders sign a contract that places all legal liability upon them, in case of fire, property devaluation, noise etc? and then has the landholder having to remove the turbines, this could cost millions.
   I dont know why anyone would be jealous of not having a turbine on their land, you’ll find any farmers with a hint of moral fibre asking themselves and neighbours first what the possible outcomes could be, and then realising that not all is what it seems. After all why would you want to take all legal risk against someone elses potential problems?
   If you think drought has reduced land values at Waubra then you really are misguided, land values have continued to increase in rural areas up until the credit crunch, but not close to wind farms, waubra is a sought after area with good land and high rainfall and would usually be one of last to loose value, but not anymore.
   Lets hope all the shelf companies fall over and other areas dont have to put up with this crap, and we invest our moneys into geothermal and solar energy, to much more reliable and freindly forms of renewable power.
9. gazz on January 10th, 2009 10:05 am 9

   Would geothermal energy be a much better solution here in the sth east, surely there must be some hot areas under here given the areas recent volcanic activity.
   Geotherma energy is available when its needed unlike wind, where its only luck if the wind is blowing at the right time
10. jai on January 10th, 2009 11:56 am 10

    Of course if anyone enters into a business relationship would have to sign a contract. I have never seen a contract nor probally will I ever because of confidentiality laws, which is why i am so suprised everyone is so quick to pull out highly inaccurate facts. Before principle contractors can even submit a proposal they have to have in place a de-commisioning plan . It has always been and always will be the windfarms responsibility to de-commision turbines and I would be interested if anyone can prove me wrong. All legal liability seems a slight stretch of words. of course you would have to put up with the slight noise whilst driving underneath them and a slight loss of productive land, thats why landowners get compensated financially.
    Windfarms generally get priority over the grid so if there is demend for power windfarms pump in first. this power is not stored so carbon emmitting power sources have to be slowed or shutdown. It is impossible for power to go into the grid if no one is using it and if we do store the electricity,then thats even better, hence i have no idea why someone would think they’re paying for power they’re not using and why anyone would believe that windfarms are not reducing carbon emmisions. At the end of the day windfarms can never produce all of our power because they rely on a variable source (wind). However all this is taken into account and they still have a capacity factor of 30 – 40% depending on wind. Compare that to a gas turbine capacity factor of 5 – 25% dependant on fuel costs. With no emmisions Wind turbines look pretty good. I best not enter the nuclear power plant discussion which have low incremental fuel costs therefor run at a capacity factor of 90%. The future of australian power supply is really there, but i’m sure many ill-informed people would dis-agree. surely topping up power system with a plentiful, renewable and clean source is not a bad thing.
11. Johnj on January 11th, 2009 8:47 am 11

    I work in the electricity supply chain and i can assure everyone i have never ever ever seen one coal powered generating system close down or even slow down when wind farm produced electricity started entering the grid.
    Wind produced electricity is to unreliable, no one knows when it will stop, therfore we cant afford to turn off coal. As it cant be ramped up to power again instantly.
    Jai you should take a closer look at the capacity factors for wind, most of them are in the range between 15 and 24%, the victorian govt trys to tell the public they work at 35% but when you get all the operational production data its well under that.
12. Matt on January 11th, 2009 11:27 am 12

    A typical response by Jai, someone that doesn’t give a crap about anyone but themselves. What a joke Wuabra is and now there are flashing lights at night. At everyone in central Vic knows where Waubra is from the ugly mess. Turbines a con on he consumer and and taxpayer and leaves the idiot landholders financially stuffed. As if anyone would be up set at not having them, their a con and they won’t save broke farmers..
13. phil on January 11th, 2009 6:24 pm 13

    I have seen the contract that wind power pty ltd has landholders sign at Waubra, it is a blight on the wind industry, and to this day i dont understand why anyone would be so desperate as to sign away all their rights, and let someone else place a structure on their land that could potentially send them broke.
    Jai is right, these contracts are confidential, but not confidential enough! It actually states the landholders take all risk for noise and devaluation complaints by neighbours, and is exteamly ambiguous when it comes to decomisioning, in fact so much that planning minister maddern has confirmed landholders will have to remove them in the absence of the shelf company with $100 to their name. (can you really imagine them being solvent at decommisioning time in 20 years) I cant !!
14. jai on January 11th, 2009 7:41 pm 14

    Wind will always blow. Windfarms will continue to be built, and I cant honestly see any windfarms being decommisioned within a hundred years. Some people will always be against them, which is perfectly fine. The bottom line is they are beneficial for the landholder (otherwise they wouldn’t have them), They are beneficial for the local regions where they are built, they are beneficial for all the contruction workers and their families, they create jobs for a operation and maintenence crew and support their families and last but not least they are great for the environment. Our company alone employs up to 50 people for work on windfarms around the nation. To say that i dont give a crap about anyone but myself is highly inaccurate and narrow minded, I’m sure my family would disagree. A typical personal attack from someone without the knowledge to have a healthy factual debate. Complaining about navigation lights that prevent planes from crashing, similar to the ones used on radio towers and transmission poles. I wonder how matt handles xmas lights.….….….Thanks everyone for the discussion, hopefully next time some pro-windfarm people read the article.
15. mick on January 12th, 2009 1:34 pm 15

    Jai, last time i looked the christmas lights on my tree wernt visible 50 km away, I think there is just a slight difference there!!
    Wind wont always blow either, this is the fundamental problem with windfarms, I often hear the wind companies say the more we build the better chance there is of being wind somewhere, well this may be true, but they forget to mention that all the windfarms are being built in the same area! south of the dividing range and why? because there is not enough wind to the north to make it viable, even with the huge subsidy. So if theres no wind in the south theres no power.
    Wind farms are being built purely to applease city greens, and even they are starting to wake up.
16. John on January 12th, 2009 6:36 pm 16

    I would like to respond to a couple of the points above. Firstly, Wind turbine efficiencies are in the order of 30 – 40%. This is a requirement for a project to meet its loan repayments. Secondly, electrical grids are constantly changing. There will always be coal and gas plants on the system but when the wind blows, wind generated energy is fed into the system. Concerns about reliability are unfounded. I bet nobody reading this can point to a grid reliability event caused by wind turbines. This is because the quality of the power that is fed to homes across the country is continuously monitored and adjusted. In fact the national grid maintains a spinning system reserve designed kick in in the event of failure of a few large conventional generators — without the average person even noticing. Therefore even if wind stopped blowing instantaneously (which it doesn’t), the grid could keep functioning — it is designed that way. To give additional comfort the NEMMCO, the body that oversees the grid, has just brought in a forecasting system designed to forecast wind speeds at wind farms and help with system and maintenance planning.

    I agree with Jai in that the anti-wind farm lobby tends to throw about technically inaccurate arguments and trade personal insults when confronted with the facts.

    I also work in the wind industry and I’m proud to be contributing to more sustainable future while bringing additional jobs and income to rural communities.
17. Mark on January 13th, 2009 9:34 am 17

    I find it strange that people who are in the wind industry refuse to disclose hourly production figures from wind plants. Secondly they also refuse to disgust their landholder agreement contracts.
    Thanks for the tip to look at the land holder review contract which also has wind powers contract. Upon showing this to my solictor she recommended that I nerver sign such a lobsided agreement to host turbines.
    I also find it strange that John has attacked people whom are conserned wit climate change but don’t think wind turbines are useful in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
18. gazz on January 13th, 2009 11:49 am 18

    Funny how the people who work in the wind industry always inflate efficiency!
    Could you name a wind farm that works at over 30% in australia john? and give figures to back it up?
    Not one wind farm in vic worked at above 30% for the last 2 years, this data is freely available from sustainability vic, in fact most of them worked close to 20% and some even lower.
    John, you mention coal and gas running in spinning reserve, isnt this why wind farms do not save any emmisions? From all the data i have seen on production out of all the coal generators in aust its clear not to many are just spinning, there almost always producing, but given the fact that yes they can spin, then something must be driving them still, so coal is still being burnt. Therefore there are absolutly no savings in emissions.
    To much cover up and lies with the wind industry, to much bleating for another handout, and no real hard facts and evidence to back up any of the enviromental claims.
    The claimed wind forcasting tool has been spoken about for years, but its never been used with any success, or has it ever been used at all? surely the BOM could forecast wind? but no the wind industry goes and looks for another hand out to make out its doing something to improve efficiency.
    After over 20 years of wind turbines around the world surely by now they would have improved enough not to need a subsidy, this just goes to show that all they are good for is a easy dollar at the communitys expense.
    Id much rather help the solar industry get going than waste time with wind,after all we can all benefit from solar on our home and get free power, unlike wind which will have us paying double.
19. Maybe on January 13th, 2009 3:33 pm 19

    Gee I’m amazed at the negativity. Power from wind and sun has surely got to be better for the environment than the alternatives.

    Sometimes it takes a while for a change in attitudes.
20. John on January 13th, 2009 8:26 pm 20

    gazz,
    I’ll address your points one by one.

    A quick search n the internet reveals Alinta, WA capacity factor = 47%, Lake Bonney =34%, Capital Wind Farm = 35.8%.

    As for Victoria — have a look at http://www.pacifichydro.com.au/OurEnergy/WindEnergy/PortlandWindEnergyProjectStageII/tabid/217/Default.aspx
    Pacific Hydro have published some capacity factors on their web site — all above 30%. Capacity factors are very tricky numbers and need to be considered carefully. Wind energy naturally varies from year to year and issues like maintenance and availability need to be factored in. Also capacity factors will be lower in the early years as the systems are commissioned and the bugs are ironed out.

    Regarding the spinning reserve comment. If you take your foot off the accelerator of your car, get out and push you’ll use less petrol. This is what a wind farm does. It’s simply reduces the fuel that the coal and gas plants have to use. This is real energy. Coal plants are rarely stopped. It costs too much to start them again. So even when they are not in use, my understanding is that many are turning at minimum output — depending on the turbine type.

    Forecasting for energy purposes has been in use in Europe for a number of years and it has just been introduced in Australia. The BOM models are not designed for wind energy purposes and therefore cannot be used without major modification. Their focus (like most other government weather services) is not servicing the wind industry. Google the Australian Wind Energy Forecasting System (AWEFS) if you are curious.

    I support solar too but we are a number of years away from seeing any commercial plant. The costs estimates I’ve heard are 3 – 5 times the cost of wind energy. Solar is a relatively mature industry so barring so quantum leaps it will be a while before we see large scale solar plants on the ground. Geothermal, tidal and wave are in their infancies so it will be a number of years before they can produce a large volume of electricity too. For now it looks like wind will be the main source of renewable energy.

    I’d love to see people get behind wind and for Australia to develop its own technology and become a major international industry player. Sadly at the moment we are being left behind other industrialised nations in an emerging industry with plenty of promise.…
21. gazz on January 13th, 2009 9:49 pm 21

    John, in theory what you say is correct in regards to spinning reserve, but like you also say its to costly to shut down coal, and it is in fact still being burnt while in spinning reserve.
    This is why i advocate using other forms of power to wind and also solar to some extent, but I still feel solar is much more reliable and beneficial to the average person, who gains financialy from having it, even more so in the case of solar hot water which can be stored.
    Wind is not a new industry by any means, europe is filled with wind farms, and emissions have continued to increase at the same rate as before wind became popular, the installation of new wind has slowed down dramatically now, because of the already high numbers and the fact that certain countries do not want any more due to cost and performance which have been poor and no where near what the proponents claimed.
    I still cannot understand why it must be subsidised, this is a rip off to consumers.
    If there must be a subsidy then all performance data should be transparent, as should wind speed at all sites be available hourly. If the public pays then they should also see the results of their money. Up to date this industry is surrounded by secrecy only leading to more speculation that something is not right.
22. John on January 14th, 2009 8:35 am 22

    gazz, if you put solar on the system you still will have to ramp down your conventional turbines and keep them running. Theoricically if you could store heat on a massive scale, you might be able to move to pure solar but this is way way off. Solar hot water is great. Again it works at a local level and reduces demand from conventional sources. However, it’s hot water not electricity. In my mind wind technology is evolving. RePower has just completed assembling a 6MW turbine. Two of these machines will generate similar energy to Wonthaggi’s 12MW. There is still innovation in the industry. The Chinese are now producing domestic designs on a mass scale and I think that anyone who looks at what they are doing will be very surprised at their ambition and scale.

    Finally.… subsidies. I don’t know if we’ll ever know the truth here. I have seen a report that says in 1997 that wind received $300m in support but during the same period coal, oil and gas received $3b. Wind also has a much overlooked effect that when the wind is blowing, market electricity prices fall dramatically. This is good for the consumer but never seems to be factored into calculations in Aus. If you remove subsidies to coal, add a carbon price and compare it to a wind including green certificates, my hunch is that wind is more competitive than you might think.

    Like every other industry wind is competitive so we rarely get the production or wind speeds numbers. These yield much more data than just how much energy a wind farm produces. They tell competitors about engineering skills, maintenance contracts etc. You never hear this information from private conventional oil and gas companies either. They do issue numbers but these are sanitised and rounded to ensure they are next to useless to competitors. That’s business!

    Ultimately government defines how the country should develop energy. They specify the CO2 reduction targets and put in place mechanisms to ensure that these are met. Private companies are only doing what they do best… meeting demand.

    J.
23. pete on January 14th, 2009 10:52 am 23

    John. It seems a little stange that in the case of supposed community owned wind farms, that they still refuse to give performance data, such as wind speed, why could this be?
    In all honesty any business that only survives due to subsidy is probably not worth having. And the wind industry is a prime example of this.
    Like someone else said, if they take taxpayers money they should be totally open and transparent
24. Mark on January 14th, 2009 12:07 pm 24

    John seems to know so much about wind, why does he refuse to cover the contract which is available on the web just google landholder contract review!!!!\
    Then come back with some response. Also have a look at spacountryguardians.org.au there’s the contract, and minister madden’s permit for waubra.
    Well done also to wind power not only have they wrecked the wind industry with they contract but have managed to get waubra built, whic has now put any sane landholder off every wanting useless wind turbines.….
25. John on January 14th, 2009 7:55 pm 25

    Airlines, coal, oil, gas, farming, the car industry to name but a few all receive subsidies. Just because an industry receives subsidies because it is in the national interest does not make it not worth having.

    As bad as the contracts appear to be the landowner obviously felt that he would benefit from having a wind farm on his land. Good on ‘em. Personally I have no interest in reading about wind speeds, company values or someone else’s contract. If there are so many flaws in the contracts then it implies that the land owner is stupid. I would not assume this at all. I’m sure they had a legal review too. In my experience farmers are very shrewd people. Is it possible that many of the negative comments are driven by the jealousy?
26. Mark on January 15th, 2009 6:50 am 26

    John that’s a very negative view. For someone pushing wind energy you seem to be ok with the poor old broke farmer being taken for a ride.
    John you call people jealous, well for for your information we have a farm on a hilly range that is a target for turbines, but after discussuing the contract with our neighbours and our solictor we are not game to sign our rights away to carpet baggers desperate for a quick buck!
    People who call this a con are always termed jealous by carpet baggers!!!!
27. John on January 15th, 2009 9:57 am 27

    I’m very positive about wind! Your solicitor should have drafted up points for negotiation. Failing agreement you can go to another company. They are not all the same. By the sounds of it your land could yield more. This is attractive prospect for working farms but maybe not so for hobby farms. Just because you couldn’t go through with it does not mean that those who do are stupid or naive or that the developers are carpetbaggers. A 20 yr time line on profit hardly counts as carpetbagging!