Comments on: Billion-dollar wind farm project proposed

By: John

John — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:27:31 +0000

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!

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:20:11 +0000

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!!!!

By: John

John — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:25:25 +0000

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?

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:37:43 +0000

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.….

By: pete

pete — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:22:03 +0000

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

By: John

John — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:05:23 +0000

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.

By: gazz

gazz — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 11:19:31 +0000

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.

By: John

John — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:56:17 +0000

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.…

By: Maybe

Maybe — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:03:32 +0000

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.

By: gazz

gazz — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:19:44 +0000

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.