Gust of energy support

Bunbury Herald
Tuesday 22/5/2007 Page: 3

A RENEWABLE energy company testing the suitability of a wind farm at Brunswick Junction has indicated it would be interested in supplying green power for Binningup's desalination plant due to open in 2011. Pacific Hydro community relations manager Emily Wood yesterday said if the Brunswick wind farm ever went ahead, then the company would be interested in supporting the desalination plant. Eighteen months ago, a 50m mast was installed about 3km out of Brunswick to test winds speeds.

Ms Wood said the company was about six months away from deciding whether it would continue investigating the site by erecting a 100m mast. Ms Wood said it cost hundreds of millions of dollars to erect a wind farm and possible sites were being tested all over Australia for wind speed, proximity to grid infrastructure, population, and community interest. She said studies were in their preliminary stages and it took about five years to assess a site and complete construction of a wind farm.

Last week, a spokesman for Water Resources Minister John Kobelke said the Binningup site for the State's second desalination plant, Desal 2, was chosen because the coastal land was already owned by the Water Corporation. The spokesman said the plant would be built so its capacity could be more than doubled to 100gL and special filtration tanks added. The desalinated water would be piped to the Harvey-Perth connection.