Our new neighbours - twin turbines move in next door

www.abc.net.au
24 March, 2011

Dianne and George Watson have been sitting and watching excitedly as piece by piece two wind turbines are built on their doorstep. The second turbine of Hepburn Wind, Australia's first community wind farm, is near completion at Leonard's Hill near Daylesford.

While wind farms have divided communities with complaints about ill health effects, noise and their appearance Dianne and George are excited at the prospect of turbines generating power from a paddock next to their property. "We've experienced the whole project going up and just seeing the parts coming up the driveway and everything, it was just unbelievable".

George says he's been living there since 1985 and it's the best thing that he's seen happen in Leonard's Hill. He says the Japan crisis has only reinforced his view that he'd rather live next to two wind towers than a nuclear power plant. The two turbines are expected to be generating power within the next four months.

Hepburn Wind chairman Simon Holmes a Court says once the lifting team have finished constructing the turbines, an electrical team will commence connecting them to the grid. "It will take them a good two months to connect up all the electricals and start to test it and in the June time frame, we'll be energising the wind farm and will start generating clean, safe energy into the local distribution network". Several residents in the local community are opposed to the project.

Simon says they've been communicating with residents as much as possible to try and "bust through some of those myths and misinformation about wind farms". "There are still a few people who are suspicious and not quite happy and we continue to work with those people to allay their fears", he says. The wind farm is expected to power more than 2,000 homes when it's operational. Simon says there will be a surplus of power and Hepburn Wind will be a net exporter of renewable energy within a year.

"We monitored the wind at the site, we had a monitoring tower up for three years, and we analysed that data at the end of that period with an independent wind engineering firm and they've predicted that the wind farm will power 2,300 homes. So generate as much power as 2,300 homes use in an average year, and in Daylesford in there are 2,000 homes". It's an interesting time for wind power and the renewable energy sector.

The emissions trading scheme debate is again dominating federal politics, a public hearing is being held in Ballarat next week as part of a Senate inquiry into wind farms and there are fears that the Victorian Government's wind farm proximity restrictions will push wind companies such as Keppel Prince and Pacific Hydro interstate.

Simon says while the project was never meant to be a political statement, he is hoping it provides a good example to the State Government as it rolls out its new wind policy about the positives of wind power. "It's been driven by local concern about climate change.

"We just sat down and thought, we're going to get on with it. So it is nice to be able to show a wide range of stakeholders in the community that a community can benefit from a wind farm and show our leaders that there is a positive role that renewable energy can play in communities".