Adelaide Advertiser
Saturday 29/11/2008 Page: 50
THE state's landscape vistas have been changed by the arrival of wind farms, and it would be fair to expect many more to join them. South Australia, with its big westerly airstreams and open landscapes, is ideal for wind generation. It is amazing to think the industry in the state has gone from a theoretical proposition to reality in such a short time. The investment of hundreds of millions of dollars, the farms earning money from their winds, the flow of energy into our electricity grids, and the towers dotting the landscape took less than five years.
We became the largest windpower producer in Australia. With output headed for 800MW, or about 17 per cent of the state's needs, SA has shown how quickly green energy can become reality. Most wind farms are in obscure corners of the state, and will not be seen by anyone but the locals and curious travellers. SA never had the rich coal deposits of the eastern states, but it has abundant renewable energy sources, so its role as an incubator of solar, geothermal, wind, tidal and wave power should be sung from the rooftops.
Advances in these technologies pose new challenges to our planning rules. Is a ridge bedecked with wind towers more disturbing than the towers of major powerlines? Personally, I don't think so. Than a major smokestack? I doubt it. Than a new freeway? Unlikely. We digest these big impositions on our landscape and try to learn to live with them. Last year, a national framework for assessing wind farms was funded by the Federal Government and drawn up by the National Trust and Auswind. NSW, Victoria and Western Australia are using the framework, but SA has yet to agree to it.
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