Wind farm power up

Age
Monday 9/8/2010 Page: 2

WIND power generation across Australia's eastern states grew by 40% last year as a number of large farms began operation, particularly in Victoria. Despite this, Victoria was the only state to increase greenhouse gas emissions from its power industry as the brown coal-fired power plants in the Latrobe Valley expanded output. A Climate Group report on electricity generation and its emissions covering all states except Western Australia found 83% of power used in 2009 came from coal, 9% was from renewable sources, mainly hydro power, and 8% from gas.

The biggest growth was from wind turbines, which fed 4.1 millionMW hours into the national electricity grid. The increase was driven by the opening of Australia's largest wind farm at Waubra, near Ballarat, and new generation of wind power by Cape Nelson and South Australian plants. "The amount of electricity generated from renewable sources in Victoria rose by 49% in 2009", the report said.