Canberra Times
Saturday 20/9/2008 Page: 1
On farms that were settled more than 100 years ago, massive 21st century technology is rising tip alongside the stockyards, rusted gates and old cottages. Just north of Bungendore, the $370 million Capital Wind Farm is taking shape in a huge logistical and engineering exercise. Twelve half-towers have so far been installed on a ridge overlooking Lake George, all of them to be eventually twice their current height. But that's just the start.
There will eventually be 67 turbines across the landscape. The towers will be 80m tall, each blade 44m across. The half-towers are already visible across Lake George from the Federal Highway. Once the wind turbines are completed, the top of the blade sweep will be about 124m above the ground. Even the nose cones and hubs which will sit in the centre of the blades are huge, construction workers scurrying through them in a surreal sight above Lake George.
The project also includes an electrical substation and 45km of underground cables. Escorted trucks arrive almost daily to the wind farm site, about 10km north of Bungendore, carrying the fibreglass blades from Port Kembla (via India) and the steel tower sections from Dalby in Queensland and Portland in Victoria. There are 102 workers on the site. Construction started in March and won't finish until next July or August.
NSW Planning Minister Frank Sartor approved the Capital Wind Farm in November 2006, with 80 conditions of consent. Renewable Power Ventures, a subsidiary of Babcock and Brown Wind Partners, is the proponent. The NSW Planning Department says the wind farm will generate more than 400,000 megawatt hours of electricity each year, "which is equivalent to the electricity consumed by approximately 52,000 homes each year". The wind farm will supply the national grid.
The NSW Government will power the Kurnell desalination plant from the Capital Wind Farm. Company spokesman David Griffin said the Bungendore site was chosen because it had predictable winds at times of high demand for electricity, was close to a transmission line with spare capacity and had vast tracts of cleared land. "Without doubt, it's the best wind resource in NSW," he said.
Seven properties are being leased by the company to accommodate the wind farm, including three historic Bungendore holdings owned by the Osborne family which has been farming in the area since 1886. The farms are running as usual while the wind farm is under construction and the Osbornes expect the properties to continue working when it operates. Brian Osborne, who has 5000 sheep on his property, said his lease with the wind farm was for 25 years. It was a more palatable option than carving up and selling off the family holdings as farming became more difficult.
Mr Osborne said he would be able to live with the wind farm. "I think I could live with that rather than live without it, otherwise we'd have to be gone," he said. The consent conditions included noise limits, a requirement for the company to identify and monitor at risk bird and bat groups and once decommissioned, the site must be "returned, as far as practicable, to its condition prior to the commencement of construction". If any turbine is not used for 12 months "it must be decommissioned unless otherwise agreed to by the director-general" of NSW Planning.
The company is to give $2.6 million to Palerang Council to seal and realign Taylors Creek Road. Mr Griffin said fewer than nine megalitres of water would be used on the site over the 18-month construction period. Bungendore Motel owner Greg Nye supports the wind farm, saying it could even be a tourist attraction. "They're like beautiful, big rural sculptures and it's part of the worldwide trend for more green energy, so it's a win-win really," he said but Dianne Douch, whose horse stud backs the wind farm, said the project was a scar on the landscape. "We never wanted them, but we've got them. From memory, I think we're going to see 27 of them from our place," she said.
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