The answer is blowin' in the wind

West Australian
Saturday 17/1/2009 Page: 19

Wind energy in WA has yet to take off, despite ideal conditions on our coastline "Thar she blows" is a familiar refrain of Albany's not-too-distant past, when, in the words of Herman Melville, our own Nantucketers used to reside and riot on the sea and scour the deep in search of the leviathan. The whale hunt has since disappeared, but the expression remains oddly apt for another distinctive local industry.

"In Albany, the wind is very good - about seven to eight metres per second," says Chem Nayar, professor of electrical energy at Curtin University. "Western Australia is one of the most effective places in the world to have wind farms." WA's first wind turbine was built on Rottnest Island in the 1980s, but the 12 turbines in Albany, stretched over about 4km of howling coastline, make it one of the State's biggest wind farms. It belts out up to 26.1 MWs, which was enough to power 70% of the town when it was completed in 2001. Rapid growth in demand has seen that proportion drop to about 50%, but it is hoped another six turbines will be swizzing by 2011 to bring the total wind energy up to 80%.

As impressive as Albany's numbers are, wind energy still accounts for a paltry 2% of WA's total electricity generation, despite natural conditions that should make us the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy. The biggest facility is at Walkaway, a 54-turbine, 90Mw monster owned by Babcock and Brown Wind Partners. WA has other outposts with smaller operations that feed into the main grid, such as Kalbarri and Bremer Bay, while remote locations including Hopetoun, Coral Bay, Denham and Esperance have turbines off the main grid to supplement diesel power stations.

Only about 65 household systems exist Statewide, including those in remote areas where necessity and more obliging neighbours make turbines more attractive. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the obstacles are largely economic. rather than technical. "I think the biggest issue why it is not picking up that much is that the electricity cost in Australia generally is low, especially compared with Europe," Nayar explains. "In Europe, somebody pays 30 or 40¢ per kW hour. Here, we pay only 12¢ per kW-hour." Plentiful coal mined at Collie and burnt in local thermal power stations continues to give WA very cheap electricity and no obvious incentive to invest in cleaner alternatives.

"There are more than 10,000 wind turbines on the system now in Germany alone," says Daniel Thompson, Verve Energy's manager sustainable energy projects. "And they enjoy being interconnected with other countries so they can export across the border." Denmark, Germany and Spain - world leaders in wind-power production - have driven development by using a "fixed feed-in tariff", where anyone who produces wind or solar electricity can sell it at a guaranteed price.

"The power purchase price is fixed for 10 to 15 years, so the financial risk for the developer is reduced," Nayar says. "A feed-in tariff would be really attractive in Australia." India has introduced one, and the wind industry has boomed. Australia, by contrast, has no fixed feed-in tariff, higher start-up costs, cheaper fossil fuels, and provides a subsidy only for solar rather than wind.

"I want to install a turbine in my house, but unfortunately, it is not attractive because I can't get any government subsidy on that, whereas if I install solar, I get a subsidy," he says. Despite the hulking shadow of coal, the wind industry appears to be growing. Several major new wind farms are in the offing, including three that are bigger than Walkaway. The biggest, planned for Merredin, will add another 270Mw, which would more than double the State's total capacity.