Green power lifts community spirits

Sunday Times
Sunday 3/10/2010 Page: 68

WA'S green energy production will receive a boost with Australia's first community wind farm expected to come on line at Mount Barker, 370km southeast of Perth, in February. It will be WA's 13th wind farm generating eco-friendly electricity. The Mount Barker Power Co will own and operate the $8.5 million wind farm, which will have three 800kW turbines 4km north of the Great Southern town. Synergy Energy will buy the 2.4MWs of energy the farm is expected to produce under a long-term agreement enough to meet the town's entire power needs. Over the 20-year life of the project, 160,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions are expected to be offset.

Mount Barker joins 12 other wind farms in WA, including Rottnest Island, Exmouth, Denham, Albany, Hopetoun, Kalbarri, Bremer Bay, Coral Bay, Emu Downs, near Cervantes, Walkaway, near Geraldton, and two separate farms in Esperance. One of the nation's biggest farms under development, the 206-MW, 111-turbine Collgar Wind Farm in Merredin, will bring the state's total active wind farms to 14 when it comes on line in August 2011. Energy Minister Peter Collier recently announced the expansion of the Grasmere wind farm in Albany, with the addition of six turbines.

Advanced Energy Resources, which owns half the Mount Barker Power Co, helped to secure the $8 5 million investment for the project, which included a $4.2 million grant from the Commonwealth's Renewable Remote Power Generation Program. AER director Luca Castelli said the Great Southern community owned almost 70% of the project, which was backed by AER, an affiliate of the Castelli Group, and project developer SkyFarming "It's very common already in Europe to see these community-style wind farms", Mr Castelli said. "We hope to see a lot more popping up across the state and Australia".

AER business development manager and former manager for sustainable business development for Verve Energy, Adrian Chegwidden, wants the State Government to provide further commercial incentives to attract investors and develop more renewable energy projects, to meet the state's share of the national renewable energy target of 20% by 2020. "They need to step up to the plate and support projects like this and larger ones", he said. "We would like to see the Government come up with a scheme similar to the feed-in tariffs that a lot of the countries in Europe have, a guaranteed return on your investment because these projects need 20 years guaranteed to get the returns back", Mr Chegwidden said.