Third wind turbine maker sets up HQ in Melbourne

AAP Newswire
Wednesday 15/11/2006

MELBOURNE, Nov 15 AAP -A third wind turbine manufacturer will setup its headquarters in Melbourne.

Victorian Energy Minister Theo Theophanous told an energy conference today that European company REpower would move its Australasian headquarters to Melbourne by the end of the year, creating 15 local jobs.

The government's Victorian Renewable Energy Target (VRET) of 10 per cent of energy to be supplied from renewable sources by 2016 had made REpower's decision possible, Mr Theophanous said.

"REpower is now the third major wind turbine manufacturer that's made Melbourne home," he said.

The other wind turbine companies that have set up in Melbourne are Vestas and Suzlon Energy. Mr Theophanous made the announcement during a debate on the merits of renewable energy with Liberal Party energy spokesman Phil Davis ahead of the November 25 state election.

The minister said the VRET was modest by world standards and had been remarkably successful, but a future Liberal government would kill renewable energy in Victoria. But Mr Davis said his party was unconvinced by the merits of the VRET and saw it as nothing more than a vehicle to raise energy costs to consumers and implement new taxes.

He said the VRET largely relied on wind energy, which was unreliable and a poor vehicle for achieving the targets. Mr Davis said energy was one of the keys to the Victorian economy and the state had a unique energy resource in the Hazelwood brown coal mine.

He said Hazelwood was the world's second largest brown coal supply in the world that was equivalent to or greater than the gas reserves in the north-west shelf and it must be preserved.