Rees to ease the way for 40 wind farm projects

Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday 28/2/2009 Page: 9

THE State Government is to pave the way for a speedy rollout of windfarms across NSW by relaxing development controls throughout much of the State. The Federal Government wants as much as one-fifth of Australia's energy to come from renewable sources by 2020, which is expected to lead to a big rise in investment in wind turbines throughout NSW.

The Premier, Nathan Rees, said yesterday the big beneficiary would likely be windfarms, which he said would generate as much as 70%of the state's renewable energy. To prepare for this, windfarms planned for the NSW-ACT border area, the Central and New England tablelands, the South Coast and the Upper Hunter would be given access to accelerated planning approvals.

At the same time, farms as small as 30 MWs would be considered critical infrastructure, down from 250 MWs at present, which also means quicker consideration for development approval. "The Rees Government is trying to address community opposition to large-scale windfarms by forcing Department of Planning project managers to act as promoters," NSW Greens MP John Kaye said. But Mr Rees said there were "regional sensitivities to be considered". ''Working more closely on these important projects is about local buy-in and ownership - getting the strong local input into the process," he said.

The State Government also outlined a plan to force electricity retailers to cut 4%of their electricity sales a year within five years by working with customers to introduce energy efficiencies. These measures might slash the need for big new coal-fired power stations by the second half of the next decade, a government official said. Initially, the energy efficiency scheme would target measures such as retrofitting downlights and the use of more energy efficient appliances, perhaps through rebates offered by the electricity retailer. Then more detailed steps would be introduced to cut the heating, cooling and lighting costs of businesses.

From July 1, power retailers such as Integral and EnergyAustralia would have to take measures to begin cutting electricity sales by an initial 0.4% by helping customers adopt energy efficiencies, or face financial penalties of $24 per MW. The efficiency target will rise to 4% in 2014. The scheme is hoped to boost investment in low-cost energy efficiency measures which will cut electricity use.

Once the scheme is up and running, improved efficiency would shave as much as $50 a year off the household electricity bill, the Government said. From 2014 to 2020 the energy improvements delivered by the scheme will save as much as 32 million MW hours of electricity a year, which would equal 3.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually, the Government said.