Wind power and wind farms in Australia: Wind in the Bush

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Wind in the Bush aims to be the most informative, comprehensive, and up-to-date pages on Australian wind power and wind farms.
The author is not beholden to any company, lobby group, or government. *
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Wind in the Bush home page: Contents

Main sections

Reference

Ancillary

Graphs

Tables

Using these pages: some hints

Most of the pages of 'Wind in the Bush' are set out like reference books. There is a contents list at the top of each page and at least one index at the bottom of almost all pages. Use these to find the subject you want, or use CTRL F to find words or phrases that interest you. There is also a search box on the left. All the main pages of 'Wind in the Bush' are listed at the top left of this page and at the top of each of the states' pages.

Created as a separate page 2008/03/03, modified 2013/04/24
Information about wind farms that I have missed, additional interesting information,
or corrections for anything that I have got wrong, would be greatly appreciated.
Contact: email daveclarkecb@yahoo.com
About me

Altered 2013/02/25

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General index
Wind farm index

Introduction

Operating Australian wind farms, installed capacity in Megawatts – by states

As of the end of December 2013 – Total 2996 MW States percentages: NSW, 9.2%; Qld. 0.4%; SA, 40.2%; Tas., 4.7%; Vic., 31.3%; WA., 14.2% Some States' pages have pie diagrams showing individual wind farms

Wind power in per-capita terms – end of 2010

Populations (2010), NSW, 7.2m; Vic, 5.5m; Qld, 4.5m; WA, 2.3m; SA, 1.6m; Tas, 0.5m; Aust., 22m; Denmark, 5.5m; Spain, 47m Denmark and Spain are the nations with the greatest installed wind power per capita in the world, they are shown for comparison. Since producing this graph I have heard that SA is now slightly behind Denmark.

Operating Australian wind farms, average Megawatts generated By states (Only those farms listed by the AEMO)

As of the end of June 2012 – Total 641 MW Some States' pages have pie diagrams showing individual wind farms

Components in a simplified wind turbine

Diagram credit US Congressional Research Service The gearing, in particular, is simplified; typically the generator spins about 90 times as fast as the rotor.

These pages discuss matters that relate to wind-generated electricity on the utility scale as it is developing in Australia. Utility turbines are usually a megawatt or more; I have not included information on domestic wind turbines that typically generate no more than a few kilowatts.

The World Wind Energy Association stated that at the end of 2010 the number of small wind turbines world-wide reached 656 000, with a total capacity of 440MW, while at the same time the total capacity of large wind turbines was 240GW. By the end of June 2012 worldwide wind capacity had reached 254GW and Denmark had acheived 28% wind power. The fact that South Australia went from nothing in ealy 2003 to around 25% wind power by 2012 shows that Australia could be doing a lot more than it is.

For information on specific Australian wind farms refer either to wind farm pages on individual states (box above left) or the Wind farm index.

I have aimed at facts; facts that have been selected to inform open-minded people about wind farms, but also facts that counter some of the lies perpetrated by wind farm opponents. Some of the facts on these pages are not particularly palatable to wind farm proponents, many will be highly unpalatable to wind farm opponents.

Greenhouse/climate change and ocean acidification are looming disasters whose massive proportions most people don't seem to grasp. Both are largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The alternatives to fossil fuel energy is to severely cut back on energy use, and this is highly unpalatable to almost everyone, or to develop sustainable energy; and one of the most important and highly developed forms of sustainable energy is wind power.

Updates

Updates to these pages are added continuously and are extracted from the various news media, scholarly journals, and by actively seeking information from wind farm proposers/owners, governments, non-government organisations and interested individuals. I'd be pleased to receive comment from anyone who believes that any items here are wrong, incomplete, or out of date (my email address is near the top of each page).

Wind power potential

Australia has huge potential for wind farm development, but if that potential is to be developed governments must take a more pro-active part. Apart from the artificially low price of fossil-fuel-generated power, the greatest obstacle to the development of wind power – and sustainable power in general – is the lack of high capacity electricity transmission lines where they are needed; and governments are showing little willingness to build them. This might be compared with Texas, where the state government is building transmission lines into areas with top-quality wind resources in anticipation of wind farm development.

Where are we compared with the rest of the world?

The World Wind Energy Association (WWEA) report for the first half of 2011 stated that 18.4 gigawatts (GW or 18 405 MW) of wind power had been added world-wide in the first half of 2011 bringing the total installed wind power in the world to 215 GW; an increase of 9.3% for the six months. Of that, 8 GW was built in China (43% of the total), 2252 MW in USA, 1480 MW in India, 766 MW in Germany, 603 MW in Canada and 480 MW in Spain. It is interesting to note that China, with 52.8 GW installed, has overtaken the USA (42.4 GW) as the world's leading wind power country. The WWEA expects about 25.5 GW to be added in the second half of 2011, bringing the total to 240 GW or almost 3% of worldwide electricity demand. (Also see How does Australia compare?.)

In December 2011 Australia had five wind farms under construction, which will add 758 MW to installed capacity. By my own calculation in December 2011 there was about 2476 MW (2.476 GW) of operating wind power in Australia. The Clean Energy Council's report 2011 stated that, for the year 2010/10/01 to 2011/09/30, wind energy provided 6432 GWh, being 21.9% of Australia's renewable energy electricity, while renewable energy supplied 9.6% of Australia's total energy. (For comparison, rooftop solar provided 2.3% of renewable power.) For more information on where Australia fits in the world picture see How does Australia compare?.

In Australia's wind power potential I have calculated that if the best wind resources of Australia were developed at least 90 GW of wind power is possible. (This excludes areas of denser population, areas of tourism value, conservation and other parks.)

The Howard Federal Government had a Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) which aimed at Australia having something under 2% of its electricity generated by renewable means. Scientists have warned that we must reduce world greenhouse gas production rates by 60%. The Rudd government promised twenty percent renewable energy by 2020 in the 2007 election campaign.

Some speculation

Odd situation in early 2013

The Liberal Coalition has won elections in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. They have made the obtaining of permission for building new wind farms in those states very difficult (see elsewhere). South Australia has about 40% of Australia's wind power and has to export substantial amounts of electricity to the eastern states when local consumption is low and wind generation is high.

Three very big wind farms are either under construction, have been approved or are seeking approval in South Australia: the Ceres Project (seeking approval) will generate up to 600MW, Hornsdale (approved) will generate up to about 300MW and Snowtown Stage 2 (under construction) will generate up to 270MW; a total of 1170MW. At the end of 2012 the total installed wind farm capacity in SA was about 1200MW, so these three projects, if built, will almost double that. It seems to me that there will be insufficient capacity in the interconnectors that transfer power between SA and the eastern states to handle the wind farm generation in SA.

Speculation: threat to fossil fuel industry

Around 2005, when wind generated a negligible proportion of Australia's electricity, the fossil fuel industry didn't see the wind industry as a threat. In 2012, with wind generating about a quarter of South Australia's electricity and a steadily increasing percentage of electricity australia-wide, the fossil fuel industry has realised that it has been caught with its pants down and that the wind energy industry is a serious competitor. It is reacting by trying, by any means available to it, to discredit wind power and sustainable energy in general. In this, through the pressure it is placing on politicians in the major parties, and the Liberal Party in particular, it seems to be having quite a bit of success.

Coincidentally, just after I wrote the paragraph above, I read a piece in The Guardian titled "Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama's clean energy strategy" which discusses devious ways in which the fossil fuel industry is trying to undermine the wind energy industry in the USA.

While Labor is not so pro fossil fuel as Liberal, it is still content to leave the mining industry (a big part of which is coal) with some $4b of subsidies annually. For example, mining is exempt from the diesel excise, while the wind and solar industries are not.

Speculation: The fossil fuel industry funds climate change denial – why not also a dis-information campaign against wind power?

In 2006 the Royal Society, probably the most prestigeous, certainly the most venerable, scientific society in the world, wrote to ExxonMobil asking them to stop funding a dis-information campaign on climate change. If the fossil fuel industry funds climate change denial, why would they be above funding a campaign against wind power?

Speculation: anti-wind power movement

In my experience wind farm proponents often avoid mentioning things that are to the disadvantage of wind power, but rarely lie; wind farm opponents commonly lie and are often woefully ill-informed. Two examples:

Randall Bell, President of the Australian Landscape Guardians, a prominent anti-wind-power group, has said on national TV (ABC Four Corners, 2011/07/25) that the battle against wind farms is a political battle, not a scientific argument, and that he will use any weapon he can to win that battle. On the same program he said that "wind will never deliver on [the government's 20% of electricity by 2020 target], not in 100 million years".
Peter Richard Mitchell of the Technical and Economic Committee of the Australian Landscape Guardians (and also a prominant member of the Waubra Foundation), in his testimony to the Senate Committee on Rural Wind Farms at Ballarat, spoke of "the multiple and complete failure of wind power generation".

Yet, while the first wind farm in South Australia was built only in 2003, just eight years later wind is providing 26% of the electricity generated in SA. Over the same period total power generation and consumption in SA have increased, the percentage of SA's power generated by coal has fallen from 42% to 25% and greenhouse gas production from the electrical generation sector has decreased. This is a remarkable achievement and there is no reason a similar feat could not be managed in the whole of the country.

The anti-wind-power movement with their misinformation campaigns does threaten the development of renewable energy in Australia. While the NIMBY principle (not in my back yard) and envy of those who are profiting from wind power are involved, there are some people who honestly believe that their health may be adversely affected by turbines and there are those who believe wind turbines are spoiling the appearance of our hills. Wind power does have problems, but they are often exaggerated.
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General index
Wind farm index

Updated 2012/10/23

The benefits of wind power

Emissions intensity on the Australian NEM

Emissions intensity (EI) from the four large states in the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) and the average for the whole of the NEM, including Tasmania. Tasmania's EI is off-scale at the bottom of this graph. Graph credit – Professor Mike Sandiford, University of Melbourne; data from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)
Note the very large decline in South Australia's EI; due almost entirely to the introduction of wind power.

We hear a lot about the problems and alleged problems of wind power, much less about its benefits.

The most important point in favour of wind power is that the electricity generated replaces power that would (especially in Australia) otherwise be generated by burning fossil fuels. So the bigger the proportion of wind power in our electricity supply the greater the reduction in the production of the atmospheric greenhouse gasses that cause climate change and ocean acidification.

A community where a wind farm is built is advantaged by:

Employment during construction and to a lesser extent operation.
Business for local contractors during construction; electrical, transport, concreting, etc.
A boost to local businesses: hotels, motels and other accommodation providers, cafes, restaurants, hardware shops, gift shops, etc.; again especially during construction and to a lesser extent during operation.
The annual land lease payments to farmers for the turbine sites.
Many wind farmers provide a community fund for the life of the wind farm.

Also see Why support wind power and The pros and cons of various methods of generating electricity.

Some of the advantages that wind power has over other forms of electricity generation are:

It is environmentally sustainable.
Unlike fossil fuel-fired power stations it produces negligible pollution; the pollution from burning fossil fuels has serious health implications.
The health improvements due to moving away from polluting fossil fuels can save more money than it costs to move to renewable energy.
Wind turbines are highly resistant to damage from natural disasters.
- Their resistance to earthquakes and tsunamis was demonstrated by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011/03/11; None of the 1746 utility-scale wind turbines in Japan were damaged.
- Flooding in Victoria put coal mines out of action in July 2012; wind farms, of course, were unaffected.
- Hurricane Sandy, called a 'frankenstorm', caused huge damage in eastern USA in October 2012; but very little damage to wind turbines was reported.
It reduces the exposure of the economy to fuel price volatility.
There is huge potential for wind farm development in Australia using currently available technology.
Wind farms can be built with little environmental damage and little loss of economically productive land.
Wind generated electricity, on a level playing field, is as cheap as most conventional forms of power generation and cheaper than most of the other sustainable forms.
Wind power is a more mature technology than is solar. The AEMO South Australia Supply and Demand Outlook report of 2011 showed (Figure 3) that total installed wind capacity in SA is 15 times that of solar. (The difference in generated power would be even greater.)
Unlike 'clean coal' (coal with sequestration), which may be achieved at some time in the future at an unknown cost, wind farms are being built now at a competitive cost.

The presence of wind turbines on ridges will reduce the number of fires started by lightning strikes by safely conducting the lightning to earth rather than it starting bushfires.

CO₂ reduction from one wind turbine

One typical (2 MW) wind turbine in Australia can be expected to produce over 6000 megawatt hours of electricity each year. If this replaces coal-fired power, then the CO₂ released to the atmosphere will be reduced by 6000 tonnes each year, if it replaces oil or gas-fired power, CO₂ released each year is reduced by about 3000 tonnes.

Mining, concentrating and refining the uranium used for nuclear power uses large quantities of fossil fuels; the 'fuel' for wind farms is free and sustainable. There is no waste from wind farming that is difficult to dispose of and nothing that can be used for nefarious purposes. The lead-time for building a nuclear power station is ten to fifteen years, for a wind farm it is about three years.
Wind farms, once operating, produce negligible greenhouse gasses. The greenhouse gasses produced in the construction of wind farms are 'abated' within the first few months of operation. Coal-fired power stations are one of the largest producers of greenhouse gasses on the planet; in terms of tonnes of CO₂ per GWh of electricity, oil fired power stations are less polluting than coal. Gas-fired power too is less polluting than coal, but there is some leakage of the very potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere from the gas industry, and even without this, gas-fired power produces about half the CO₂/GWh of coal.
Wind farms use a negligible amount of water when operating, and very moderate amounts during construction. By comparison, coal-fired power stations typically use more than a million litres of water for each gigawatt-hour of electricity generated; nuclear power stations and even many of the larger solar power stations also require significant amounts of cooling water. Wind turbines do not use water for cooling.
Compared to solar power wind farms use little land and a single utility-scale wind turbine generates about 2000 times as much electricity as a typical roof-top solar power installation (see elsewhere). (Solar and wind are compared elsewhere on this site.)
Once built wind turbines keep producing power without further costs apart from general maintenance. Should the economy of a country with a large wind energy resource collapse, its wind turbines will go on generating power while it might not be able to buy fuel for its more conventional power stations.
Turbines on the tops of ridges act like lightning conductors and safely conduct the energy of lightning strikes to earth; if the turbines were not on the ridges the same lightning could cause fires.

CO₂ abatement by wind farms

SKM report, Wind Farm Investment, Employment and Carbon Abatement in Australia

Also see Benefits of wind power, above, and CO₂ and wind farms on the Wind-Problems page.

Sinclair Knight Merz, an engineering and consulting firm with global capacity, conducted a study into the benefits of wind power in Australia; it was published in June 2012 and can be read or downloaded from the Clean Energy Council's Web site.

Average abatement achieved by 100 MW wind farm at 35% capacity factor in the National Electricity Market (NEM)
Region Abatement intensity
(t CO₂e/MWh) Emissions abated
(t CO₂e p.a.) Equivalent cars removed from road
National Electricity Market (NSW, Qld, SA, Tas, Vic) 0.87 266 700 62 000
South West Interconnected System (WA) 0.76 233 000 54 200
Darwin Katherine Interconnected System (NT) 0.51 156 400 36 400
National 0.80 246 200 57 300
NSW 0.89 273 900 63 500
Qld 0.89 273 000 63 500
SA 1.02 314 100 73 100
Tas 0.45 137 200 31 900
Vic 1.10 337 300 78 400
't CO₂e/MWh' is tonnes of carbon dioxide from electricity, per Megawatt-hour

Average abatement achieved by 100 MW wind farm at 35% capacity factor in the National Electricity Market (NEM)
Region	Abatement intensity (t CO₂e/MWh)	Emissions abated (t CO₂e p.a.)	Equivalent cars removed from road
National Electricity Market (NSW, Qld, SA, Tas, Vic)	0.87	266 700	62 000
South West Interconnected System (WA)	0.76	233 000	54 200
Darwin Katherine Interconnected System (NT)	0.51	156 400	36 400
National	0.80	246 200	57 300
NSW	0.89	273 900	63 500
Qld	0.89	273 000	63 500
SA	1.02	314 100	73 100
Tas	0.45	137 200	31 900
Vic	1.10	337 300	78 400
't CO₂e/MWh' is tonnes of carbon dioxide from electricity, per Megawatt-hour

What the above figures tell us is that for every Megawatt-hour of electricity that is generated by an Australian wind farm, on average, there is nearly a tonne less greenhouse carbon dioxide released than there would be if the wind farms were not there. Coal-fired power stations (typical of Victoria) release about a tonne of CO₂ for every MWh they generate, other states have a lower proportion of coal-fired power; Tasmania, in particular, has a high percentage of clean hydro power.

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Tourism and wind farms

A viewing pod on a wind turbine tower at Vancouver, Canada

Image credit: The Globe and Mail, Canada

There are a few wind farms where guided tours are offered; there are a few wind farms that have viewing and information areas; there are a few wind farms where events such as walks, runs and rides beneath the turbines are organised periodically, but in general there is little for a tourist to do at a wind farm.

More could be done to encourage tourism by the wind farm operators and if more visits by the general public were encouraged it would help to increase awareness of the facts about wind power and dispell some of the myths about noise and health issues, etc.

The photo on the right is of a viewing pod on a wind turbine tower overlooking Vancouver, Canada. More can be read about this at Inside Vancouver. A similar viewing pod on one of the turbines at the proposed Ceres Project on Yorke Peninsula could provide oustanding views of the generally fairly flat Peninsula as well as across the Gulf Saint Vincent to Adelaide.

Wind turbines can also become art objects.

Wind farms that do have something for tourists beyond just views of the turbines from nearby roads

Below are some that I know of (I'd be happy to list more if anyone can tell me of them).

Albany (WA): Walks through a scenic coastal area, amid interesting native vegetation, near the feet of a few turbines, with information.
Challicum Hills (Vic): There is a viewing/information area, but it is not close to any of the turbines.
Codrington (Vic): There is an information area on the side of the nearby highway, several kilometres from the turbines. There were tours, but I don't know if they are still available.
Mount Millar (SA): An information area near the base of one turbine.
Salmon Beach (Esperance, WA): This was the first wind farm in Australia; now decommissioned, but one turbine is still standing in its original position and one has been moved into town; information at both.
Starfish Hill (SA): Access to within a few metres from the foot of a turbine, a good view, and some information.
Ten Mile Lagoon (Esperance, WA): A side road from a very scenic coastal drive leads to an information shelter on top of a hill with a good view. Walking trails through native vegetation nearby.
Toora (Vic): An information area near one of the turbines.
Wattle Point (SA): Shelter shed with information fairly close to one of the turbines.
Woodlawn (NSW): An inaugural run through the wind farm in November 2012 attracted 450 participants.
Woolnorth (Tas): Tours are avaialable (I believe).

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Altered 2011/10/18

Evolution of wind turbines in Australia

Right back into pre-history wind has been used to move boats. Wikipedia says that the first practical windmills were in use in Sistan, a region of Iran and bordering Afghanistan, at least by the 9th century. Wind power began being harnessed in Europe in the twelfth century. It was used to grind grain, power early industrial machines such as heavy hammers, and to pump water. With the coming of steam power in the nineteenth century, around the time Australia was settled by Europeans, wind and water power went into decline; steam power was more reliable and, very importantly, available on demand.

Recently climate change and the 'end of oil' have become important, and mankind is having to 'kick the habit' of cheap energy. It is not easy.

The largest turbines built in Australia – by date
Turbine evolution in Australia
The first public electricity supply (or utility-scale; not household or farm supply) wind turbines in Australia were the 60 kW units built at Salmon Beach, Esperance, Western Australia. From that time wind turbines have tended to become steadily larger, up to the present (October 2012) when the most common size constructed is 3 MW. Smaller turbines have also been constructed in particular cases and for particular purposes.

The graph on the right shows some of the larger turbines built in Australia in particular years. Note that the size increase has tended to be exponential rather than linear, with the turbines increasing in size by an average of about 20% each year. The Australian record in the evolution of turbine sizes very much follows that world-wide. For several practical reasons it seems that wind turbines (or at least on-shore wind turbines) cannot get much bigger.

Some of the larger turbines built in Australia in particular years
Place Year kW
Salmon Beach, Esperance, WA 1987 60
Coober Pedy, SA 1990 150
Ten Mile Lagoon, Esperance, WA 1993 225
Crookwell, NSW 1998 600
Blayney, NSW 2000 660
Codrington, Vic. 2001 1300
Albany, WA 2001 1800
Canunda, SA 2005 2000
Snowtown, SA 2008 2100
Lake Bonney #2, SA 2008 3000
Unlike in the USA, where public electrical supply turbines were developed much earlier, tubular steel, rather than steel lattice towers, have always been used in Australia. Elsewhere in the world some down-wind turbines (with the blades on the down-wind side of the tower) have been built in the past; only the up-wind type has ever been built in Australia. All utility scale wind turbines in Australia are of the horizontal axis type.

The turbines listed in the table on the right (the same as those graphed above) were among the largest constructed in Australia in the given years.

Limits to turbine size

Size and cost of the cranes that are used for turbine erection. Already crane hire fees (I've heard a figure of $30 000 per day) is a major cost in wind farm construction and maintenance. Off-shore turbines up to 6 MW have recently been built in Europe; it is easier to move a huge floating crane from one turbine to another than a similar crane on hill-tops.
Size and weight of components that must be transported by road.
Potential for aviation and radar interference.
Material fatigue issues.
Local opposition to siting (the bigger the turbines the more conspicuous they are and the greater the area from which they can be seen).

A fuller comment on this topic is elsewhere on this page.

Photos of some of these turbines are below; larger photos are generally available via the links.

Evolution of Australian wind turbines in pictures

Salmon Beach, 60 kW, 1987	Coober Pedy, 150 kW, 1990 Photo credit: Greg Farkas	Ten Mile Lagoon, Esperance, 225 kW, 1993

Codrington, 1300 kW, 2001	Albany, 1800 kW, 2001	Snowtown, 2100 kW, 2008

Waterloo, 3000 kW, 2010

Turbine blade materials

So far as I know, up to 2011 most turbine blades were made of fibre-glass reinforced epoxy, possibly with some balsa wood being incorporated; but in late 2011 Nordex, at least, announced its first carbon-fibre turbine blades.

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Updated 2013/01/11

Chronology of wind farm construction in Australia

In the table below wind farms completed in the same year are placed in alphabetical order. The exact date of completion is somewhat arbitrary. Cumulative figures are rounded to the nearest MW. Salmon Beach Wind Farm is not included in the cumulative figures because it has been dismantled.

Name State Year of completion MW Total for year Cumulative MW
Salmon Beach (Esperance) Western Australia 1987 0.36 0.36 0.0
Coober Pedy South Australia 1991 0.15 0.15 0
Ten Mile Lagoon (Esperance) Western Australia 1993 2.0 2.0 2
Kooragang NSW 1997 0.6
Thursday Island Queensland 1997 0.5 1.1 3
Crookwell NSW 1998 4.8 4.8 8
Windy Hill Queensland 2000 12.0 12.0 20
Albany Western Australia 2001 21.6
Codrington Victoria 2001 18.2
Hampton Park NSW 2001 1.3 41.1 61
Blayney NSW 2002 9.9
Toora Victoria 2002 21.0 30.9 92
Challicum Hills Victoria 2003 52.5
Nine Mile Beach (Esperance) Western Australia 2003 3.6
Starfish Hill South Australia 2003 34.5 90.6 183
Name State Year of completion MW Total for year Cumulative MW
Bremer Bay Western Australia 2005 0.6
Canunda South Australia 2005 46.0
Cathedral Rocks South Australia 2005 66.0
Cocos (Keeling) Island Western Australia 2005 0.8
Lake Bonney Stage 1 South Australia 2005 80.5
Mount Millar South Australia 2005 70.0
Wattle Point South Australia 2005 90.8
Wonthaggi Victoria 2005 12.0 366.7 549
Coral Bay Western Australia 2006 0.8
Emu Downs Western Australia 2006 79.2
Hopetoun Western Australia 2006 1.2
Rottnest Western Australia 2006 0.6
Walkaway Western Australia 2006 89.1 170.9 720
Denham Western Australia 2007 1.0
Woolnorth Tasmania 2007 139.8 140.8 861
Brown Hill Range (Hallett) South Australia 2008 94.5
Name State Year of completion MW Total for year Cumulative MW
Kalbarri Western Australia 2008 1.6
Lake Bonney Stage 2 South Australia 2008 159.0
Snowtown South Australia 2008 100.8 355.9 1217
Bungendore NSW 2009 140.7
Clements Gap South Australia 2009 56.7
Cullerin Range NSW 2009 30
Hallett Hill (Hallett) South Australia 2009 71.4
Lake Bonney Stage 3 South Australia 2009 39.0
Portland Victoria 2009 132.0
Waubra Victoria 2009 192.0 661.8 1879
Waterloo South Australia 2010 111.0 111.0 1990
Bluff Range (Hallett) South Australia 2011 52.5
Collgar Western Australia 2011 206.5
Gunning NSW 2011 46.5
Leonards Hill Victoria 2011 4.1
Name State Year of completion MW Total for year Cumulative MW
Mount Barker Western Australia 2011 2.4
North Brown Hill (Hallett) South Australia 2011 132.3
Woodlawn NSW 2011 42.0 486.3 2476
Grasmere Western Australia 2012 13.8
Mortons Lane Victoria 2012 19.5
Oaklands Hill Victoria 2012 67.2 100.5 2576
Denmark Western Australia 2013 1.6
Macarthur Victoria 2013 420

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Name	State	Year of completion	MW	Total for year	Cumulative MW
Salmon Beach (Esperance)	Western Australia	1987	0.36	0.36	0.0
Coober Pedy	South Australia	1991	0.15	0.15	0
Ten Mile Lagoon (Esperance)	Western Australia	1993	2.0	2.0	2
Kooragang	NSW	1997	0.6
Thursday Island	Queensland	1997	0.5	1.1	3
Crookwell	NSW	1998	4.8	4.8	8
Windy Hill	Queensland	2000	12.0	12.0	20
Albany	Western Australia	2001	21.6
Codrington	Victoria	2001	18.2
Hampton Park	NSW	2001	1.3	41.1	61
Blayney	NSW	2002	9.9
Toora	Victoria	2002	21.0	30.9	92
Challicum Hills	Victoria	2003	52.5
Nine Mile Beach (Esperance)	Western Australia	2003	3.6
Starfish Hill	South Australia	2003	34.5	90.6	183
Name	State	Year of completion	MW	Total for year	Cumulative MW
Bremer Bay	Western Australia	2005	0.6
Canunda	South Australia	2005	46.0
Cathedral Rocks	South Australia	2005	66.0
Cocos (Keeling) Island	Western Australia	2005	0.8
Lake Bonney Stage 1	South Australia	2005	80.5
Mount Millar	South Australia	2005	70.0
Wattle Point	South Australia	2005	90.8
Wonthaggi	Victoria	2005	12.0	366.7	549
Coral Bay	Western Australia	2006	0.8
Emu Downs	Western Australia	2006	79.2
Hopetoun	Western Australia	2006	1.2
Rottnest	Western Australia	2006	0.6
Walkaway	Western Australia	2006	89.1	170.9	720
Denham	Western Australia	2007	1.0
Woolnorth	Tasmania	2007	139.8	140.8	861
Brown Hill Range (Hallett)	South Australia	2008	94.5
Name	State	Year of completion	MW	Total for year	Cumulative MW
Kalbarri	Western Australia	2008	1.6
Lake Bonney Stage 2	South Australia	2008	159.0
Snowtown	South Australia	2008	100.8	355.9	1217
Bungendore	NSW	2009	140.7
Clements Gap	South Australia	2009	56.7
Cullerin Range	NSW	2009	30
Hallett Hill (Hallett)	South Australia	2009	71.4
Lake Bonney Stage 3	South Australia	2009	39.0
Portland	Victoria	2009	132.0
Waubra	Victoria	2009	192.0	661.8	1879
Waterloo	South Australia	2010	111.0	111.0	1990
Bluff Range (Hallett)	South Australia	2011	52.5
Collgar	Western Australia	2011	206.5
Gunning	NSW	2011	46.5
Leonards Hill	Victoria	2011	4.1
Name	State	Year of completion	MW	Total for year	Cumulative MW
Mount Barker	Western Australia	2011	2.4
North Brown Hill (Hallett)	South Australia	2011	132.3
Woodlawn	NSW	2011	42.0	486.3	2476
Grasmere	Western Australia	2012	13.8
Mortons Lane	Victoria	2012	19.5
Oaklands Hill	Victoria	2012	67.2	100.5	2576
Denmark	Western Australia	2013	1.6
Macarthur	Victoria	2013	420

The steps involved in building a wind farm

The following is copied from an information sheet published by Origin Energy; it might be interesting to anyone who has been informed that there is a proposed wind farm nearby. This document goes some way toward explaining why there have been about five wind farms proposed for every one built in Australia (as of early 2012). I will quote the sheet verbatim...

Wind Farms
Guide to steps and timelines

Developing a wind farm is a careful and lengthy process. Most wind farms take considerable time – around five years or even longer – to proceed from concept through to approval, construction and operation. The following table indicates the steps which are followed, and a typical wind farm timeline.

A decision to proceed (or not) is taken after each step; all times are indicative only.

Step 1:
(Year 1) Initial research
Desktop research identifies windy areas with potentially suitable access, environment and topography, and possible connection to the electricity grid.
Decision point... seek landholder participation for studies
Step 2:
Year 1-2 Landholder contact, data collection and constraint mapping
Short-term agreements are sought with landholders to allow exclusive access to properties for wind measurement (including wind monitoring towers), initial environmental and constraint studies and other work, including exploring options to connect to the electricity grid. Landholder agreements may include long-term arrangements to be activated should the project reach step 7 (construction).
Decision point... refine area and proceed to more detailed studies
Step 3:
Year 2-3 Refine project area, conduct detailed studies and develop layout
The project area is refined and more detailed environmental, landscape, noise and other assessment studies are conducted. These inform the development of draft management and construction plans and, with landholder and community input, help pinpoint potential locations for turbines, access tracks, any required substations, connection lines, and other project layout details.
Decision point... proceed to development application
Step 4:
(Year 3) Development Application process
Detailed development application documents are produced for consideration by the community and the appropriate planning authorities (local, state, federal) in the statutory development assessment process. The development assessment process provides everyone with the opportunity to make formal submissions regarding the final proposal, prior to it being assessed. This assessment process may see the proposal approved without conditions, approved with conditions, or refused.
Decision point... outcome of development application process considered
Step 5:
(Year 3-4) Tenders and final agreement for grid connection
If development approval is given and any conditions accepted, agreement is reached with the electricity network for future grid connection and tenders are sought for equipment and the construction process.
Step 6:
(Year 4) Financial Investment Decision
Following approvals and tenders, the Origin Board of Directors then considers whether to commit expenditure for the construction and operation of the wind farm (this decision will normally involve hundreds of millions of dollars). The decision may be to proceed or to wait, pending various business or economic issues.
Decision point... financial decision to construct or not
Step 7:
(Year 4-5) Construction
If the financial decision is to proceed, orders are placed for turbines and other equipment, and a construction company engaged to build the wind farm. Long-term lease agreements with landholders are activated during this stage and a Community Fund established.
Step 8:
(Year 5) Generation
The wind farm begins generating electricity for the national grid.

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Updated 2012/10/18

The future of wind power in Australia

Wind turbine at Starfish Hill, Fleurieu Peninsula

Climate change is happening and must be minimised; Australia and the world must move away from fossil fuels. No reasonable and informed person can doubt this any more. Australia now has a government that recognises the need for action, but is doing too little too leisurely. Australian governments could do much more and there are many possible actions that would have very little cost to taxpayers or industry.

Wind, at the present, is the leading economically competitive form of sustainable energy, but solar photovoltaic is catching up and solar thermal is showing promise. (Australia's wind power potential is dealt with on another page on this site.)

Using biological waste and methane from land-fill to generate electricity is feasible and is being done, but its capacity is limited. It is looking like solar thermal is close to being competitive, but it will take many years to 'scale-up' to the point where they are major sources of energy. 'Hot dry rock' geothermal seems to have too many technical difficulties to be a serious contender in the foreseeable future. Photovoltaic solar is growing quickly, but is a long way behind wind in capacity at the present. Wave-power, harnessing algae to produce fuels, and other alternatives seem further away. A decade or two could change that picture.

Limits to growth of the wind industry

In mid 2012 the limits to the growth of the wind industry in Australia were:

The lack of electricity transmission lines where they are needed (Governments seem willing to build transmission lines to new mines, but unwilling to build them for the large-scale development of wind farms);
The relatively low wholesale price of power from hydro and of renewable energy certificates created by solar installations makes power retailers relucent to offer power purchase agreements to new wind farms;
A growing level of opposition to the building of wind farms, which seems based mainly on questionable claims that wind turbines cause ill-health, and the NIMBY principle;
Federal government is not as supportive as it could well be.

(The low wholesale price of hydro is probably related to 2010 and 2011 being unusually wet; leading to an abundance of water for hydro-power.)

Certainly wind power is not 'the answer' to climate change. Only a naïve person would believe that there is a single answer, and only a naïve or dishonest person would object to wind power because it is not 'the answer'. It is a part of 'the answer'. Other parts are energy conservation, technological innovation, development of other forms of sustainable energy, and education. (I have listed some suggestions in What should be done.)

So, what is the future of wind power in Australia?

Off-shore wind power installations
This is also an option. Turbines can either be set in the seabed in shallow water or they can float and be tethered to the seabed in deep water. Off-shore developments could at least double Australia's wind power potential. The greatest Australian potential for off-shore wind power is near Tasmania, but all the southern coast of Australia could be used. Unfortunately both the capital cost and operational and management costs of off-shore wind power is about twice that of on-shore. The former is due to the considerable costs of foundations, submarine transmission cables and installation facilities, while the latter reflects the remote and harsh sea environment in which they operate. (Also see Australia's wind power potential.)
If the logic in the few sentences above is correct, then wind power must be developed to the maximum reasonable degree and as quickly as possible.

In Australia's wind power potential I argue that the potential installed wind power in Australia is more than 91 GW, and the amount of generation then would be more than 241 TWh p.a. (Total electrical generation in Australia in 2010 was around 300 TWh.)

Some of us will get sick of the site of wind turbines; some already are. (I love the things; they are elegant, graceful, and do no harm to most views. Of course there are some places where I would not want to see them built.) The alternatives to building wind turbines are to either throw caution and sanity to the wind and continue with fossil fuels, or to totally change our life-styles and enormously cut down on the amount of energy that we use, in our personal lives and in industry. We may well do the former, I cannot imagine our society being ready or willing to do the latter.

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Updated 2011/07/10

Wind turbines at Starfish Hill, Cape Jervis, South Australia

Installed wind power capacity in Australia

The figures in the table below were recorded from the AusWEA site in July 2003, February 2004, June 2005, and December 2006. Later figures were from my own records.

South Australia has been the leading wind power state in Australia since construction of Canunda and Lake Bonney Stage 1 wind farms in March 2005, and since late 2005 (following completion of Wattle Point, Cathedral Rocks and Mount Millar) has hosted about half of Australia's wind power.

It is worth noting that for every wind farm that has been built (about 45 in mid 2011), another four or five (over 200) have been proposed. Would most of these proposed wind farms have been built if conditions were more favourable to sustainable energy development?

Note that installed capacities are a very long way from what they could be. The shortfall is mainly due to lack of government – both state and federal – support for renewable energy; for example the failure to build the needed new transmission lines.

These pages deal with industrial-scale wind turbines only. Dept. Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts data (2009/02/20) recorded about 50 Australian 'wind farms' of less than 160 kW each, totalling 1.48 MW installed capacity, and not included here.

Capacity factor
All the figures given in the table below are what the wind farms can produce in ideal wind conditions and are known as 'installed capacities'. Actual generation is less, and the difference is defined as the capacity factor. The capacity factor is a measure of how much electricity a power plant actually produces compared to its potential running at full load.
Data that enable the calculation of the capacity factor of many of eastern Australia's wind farms have become available from the AEMO and are tabled and graphed elsewhere on this page. The Net site of the Australian Landscape Guardians (ALG) provide downloadable monthly wind farm generation data in 'csv' form (suitable for spreadsheets) from which capacity factors can be calculated. (On the same site Andrew Miskelly provides daily wind farm output in a graphical format.)
I don't know of anywhere that wind farm generation figures are available for Western Australia (and I'd be please if anyone could tell me if they are available somewhere).
Actual capacity factors achieved in eastern Australian wind farms vary from 23% up to 42% and average about 35% (based on data from the AEMO via the ALG Net site as of March 2011).

Total installed wind power
All figures are megawatts (MW); totals are for the end of each year
State/Year 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
NSW 17 17 17 17 17 17 187 187 187 276 276
Qld. 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12
SA 0 35 35 388 388 388 742 909 1020 1073 1073
Tas. 0 0 0 0 0 140 140 140 140 140 140
Vic. 39 92 92 104 104 104 104 428 428 434 521
WA 24 27 27 29 200 201 202 202 202 541 555
Australia
Total 92 183 183 549 720 861 1217 1879 1990 2476 2576

Assuming a capacity factor of 34%, 2576 MW of wind turbines will generate about 7700 GWh per year

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Installed wind power capacity – The world and Australia

World – top curve Australia – lower curve The World data came from The Guardian – updated 2013/02/14

The figures for installed wind power after 2006 on the table above, are from my own calculation and estimation; I didn't calculate the figures for proposed capacity because I have come to suspect that some of the proposals are made for dubious reasons and not with a serious belief that the particular farm will ever be built.

The daily minimum electrical consumption rate in SA at 2008 is around 1000 MW. If SA wind farm generation was to grow much greater than this then substantial amounts of electricity would have to be sent to other states, at least a part of the time; or other uses for the electricity would have to be found, for example, desalination of sea water and the recharging of electric cars. Exporting substantially more power would require the construction of more interstate power transmission lines (interconnectors).

The graph on the right shows the figures for installed wind power in the world (top pink line – from World Wind Energy Reports) and in Australia (lower blue line). Growth in world installed capacity since 1996 has been around 27% per year. Annual growth in Australian installed capacity was around 80% from 1996 to 2006, but has slowed to about 23% in more recent years.

Navigant Research reported in March 2013 that 2012 was a record year for wind farm installation, 45GW, world-wide; bringing the total to 285GW. The report stated that wind was generating 2.62% of the world's electricity at the end of 2012.

Installed wind power in Australia, by wind farm and as of January 2013

Wind farm State MW
Albany WA 35.4
Blayney NSW 9.9
Bremer Bay WA 0.6
Bungendore NSW 140.7
Canunda SA 46.0
Cathedral Rocks SA 66.0
Challicum Hills Vic. 52.5
Clements Gap SA 56.7
Codrington Vic. 18.2
Collgar WA 206.5
Coral Bay WA 0.83
Crookwell NSW 4.8
Cullerin Range NSW 30.0
Denham WA 0.7

Wind farm State MW
Emu Downs WA 79.2
Esperance group WA 5.6
Gunning NSW 46.5
Hallett group SA 350.7
Hampton Park NSW 1.3
Hopetoun WA 0.6
Kalbarri WA 1.7
Kooragang NSW 0.6
Lake Bonney group SA 278.5
Leonards Hill Vic. 4.1
Morton's Lane Vic. 19.5
Mount Millar SA 70.0
Oaklands Hill Vic. 67.2
Portland group Vic. 132.0

Wind farm State MW
Rottnest WA 0.6
Snowtown SA 100.8
Starfish Hill SA 34.5
Thursday Island Qld 0.5
Toora Vic. 21.0
Walkaway WA 90.2
Waterloo SA 111.0
Wattle Point SA 90.8
Waubra Vic. 192.0
Windy Hill Qld 12.0
Wonthaggi Vic. 12.0
Woodlawn NSW 42.0
Woolnorth group Tas. 139.8

These wind farms are parts of larger units
(the groups on the left two tables).
Wind farm State MW Part of
Albany (1) WA 21.6 Albany
Bluff Point Stage 1 Tas. 10.5 Woolnorth
Bluff Point Stage 2 Tas. 54.3 Woolnorth
Bluff Range SA 52.5 Hallett (#5)
Brown Hill Range SA 94.5 Hallett (#1)
Cape Bridgewater Vic. 58.0 Portland
Cape Nelson S. Vic. 44.0 Portland
Grasmere WA 13.8 Albany
Hallett Hill SA 71.4 Hallett (#2)
Lake Bonney Stage 1 SA 80.5 Lake Bonney
Lake Bonney Stage 2 SA 159.0 Lake Bonney
Lake Bonney Stage 3 SA 39.0 Lake Bonney
Nine Mile Beach WA 3.6 Esperance
North Brown Hill SA 132.3 Hallett (#4)
Studland Bay Tas. 75.0 Woolnorth
Ten Mile Lagoon WA 2.0 Esperance
Yambuk Vic. 30.0 Portland

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Wind farms under construction

The numbers below are calculated from the records on these pages and are current for January 2013.

Wind farms under construction
State	Farms	MW
NSW	3	192
Queensland	0	0
SA	1	270
Tas	1	168
Victoria	8	1113
WA	1	55
Totals	13	1799

The wind farms that were under construction include:

State Name Start Likely completion Owner
NSW Crookwell-2 Unavailable Unavailable UFWA
Gullen Range Dec. 2013 Goldwind
Taralga May 2012 2013 AusChina
SA Snowtown Stage 2 August 2012 End of 2014 Trust Power (NZ)
Tasmania Musselroe Dec. 2012 June 2013 Hydro Tasmania
Victoria Bald Hills August 2012? Early 2015 REpower Systems
Hawkesdale Mar. 2012 ? UFWA
Macarthur Early 2011? Early 2013 AGL
Mount Gellibrand Mar. 2012 ? Acciona
Mount Mercer Dec. 2012 ? Meridian and West Wind
Ryan Corner Mar. 2012 ? UFWA
Salt Creek Mar. 2012 ? NewEN Aust.
Woolsthorpe Mar. 2012 ? Wind Farm Dev.
WA Mumbida Late 2011? Oct. 2013 Macquarie and Verve Energy
UFWA is Union Fenosa Wind Australia.

The March 2012 starting date of five of the Victorian wind farms was a, probably unintended, consequence of the new wind farm laws. The developers had to either start by mid March or re-apply for approval under the new laws that were intended to make wind farm development very difficult (a part of the Liberal's war on renewable energy).
A consequence of the forced construction of this group of new wind farms will probably be to reduce the price of Renewable Energy Certificates and so delay construction of wind farms in other Australian states.

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Updated 2012/08/03

Major wind farms in Australia

Biggest wind farms operating in Australia in December 2012

The biggest wind farms in Australia are Macarthur, the Hallett group and Lake Bonney.

The Macarthur Wind Farm (420 MW) in Victoria is as of December 2012 the biggest in Australia.

The Hallett wind farms of SA could easily be called a single wind farm; all are within a fairly small area and all feed power into a single substation. Brown Hill Range (Hallett #1, 95 MW), Hallett Hill (Hallett #2, 69.3 MW), North Brown Hill (Hallett #4, 132.3 MW) and Bluff Range Wind Farm (Hallett #5, 52.5 MW) are all operating (total 351 MW, graph at right) and construction of Mount Bryan (Hallett #3) at 63 MW is 'under contract'. When and if all are built the total for Hallett will be about 414 MW.

When Snowtown stage 2 Wind Farm is finished it will bring the total installed power of the Snowtown wind farms to 371 MW, making it the biggest in SA at least until Hallett #3 is built.

Major wind farms in Australia: greater than 100 MW

Updated 2013/01/13

Note that as of December 2011 not many of these wind farms were operating. I have included only those that were at least to the stage of having received development approval.

Wind farms greater than 100 MW In alphabetical order
Name	Capacity (MW)	Status	State	Location
Bald Hills	107	Under construction	Victoria	Near Wilson's Promontory
Bungendore/Capital	141	Operating	New South Wales	Goulburn area
Collgar	206	Operating	Western Australia	South of Merredin
Crows Nest	158?	Approved	Queensland	Toowoomba area
Hallett wind farms	Up to 414	Stages 1, 2, 4 and 5 operating Stage 3 likely	South Australia	Mid-North
Hornsdale	Up to 315	Approved	South Australia	Jamestown area
Lake Bonney	279	Operating	South Australia	South-East
Lal Lal	128-190	Approved	Victoria	Ballarat area
Macarthur	420	Operating	Victoria	Hamilton area
Name	Capacity (MW)	Status	State	Location
Mount Gellibrand	189	Under construction	Victoria	South of Colac
Portland wind energy project	195?	132 MW operating	Victoria	Portland area
Silverton (Broken Hill)	Around 1000?	Approved	New South Wales	Far west
Snowtown, two stages	371	101 MW operating	South Australia	Mid-North
Stockyard Hill	471	Approved	Victoria	40km W of Ballarat
Taralga	107	Approved	New South Wales	Goulburn area
Waterloo	129	111 operating	South Australia	Mid-North
Waubra	192	Operating	Victoria	Ballarat area

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Altered 2012/07/08

Power generation of wind farms

No generation data from WA

For some reason the wind generation data from WA's wind farms is not made public. The Australian public, particularly the Western Australian public, has a right to know how much power wind farms generate, after all, they are paying for the wind farms with their power bills.

The lack of generation data from wind farms allowed opponents of wind power to falsely claim that wind farms actually generate very little electricity. This situation changed when the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) made data available from all of the larger Eastern Australian wind farms.

The figures below were calculated from AEMO data downloaded via the Australian Landscape Guardians (ALG) Net page. (On the same site Andrew Miskelly provides daily wind farm output in a graphical format.) Graphs of average power generation, on a month-by-month basis, for each of the wind farms in the table below are given on the state wind farm pages of Wind in the Bush. This can be reached via the menu at the top of this page or the Wind farm index.

The capacity factors and average power outputs were calculated for data recorded in the given periods (inclusive of the starting and ending months). Internationally, I believe, a capacity factor of anything above 30% is considered very good for an on-shore wind farm.

To understand the table below requires an understanding of power and energy and the difference between them; an explanation is in the glossary.
As a resident of Mid-North SA I am pleased to see that Hallett and Snowtown wind farms have the highest capacity factors of the big farms and that the Hallett group is now generating almost twice as much electricity as any other wind farm in Australia (and probably the Southern Hemisphere). Waubra and Woolnorth are the only big wind farms not in Mid-North SA to come close to the capacity factors of Hallett and Snowtown.

Wind farm power generation in Australia

Capacity factors and power generated are graphed below. Graphs for individual farms are provided on the states pages.
All generation data start from the beginning of the month shown and are up to the end of 2012.

Name	State	Installed MW	Capacity factor	Power generated Ave. MW	Data starting from	Turbine
Bungendore	NSW	141	26%	36.3	July 2009	Suzlon 2.1 MW
Canunda	SA	46	30%	13.7	May 2008	Vestas 2 MW
Cathedral Rocks	SA	66	31%	20.5	March 2009	Vestas 2 MW
Challicum Hills	Vic.	53	29%	15.2	March 2009	Neg Micon 1.5 MW
Clements Gap	SA	57	35%	19.6	July 2009	Suzlon 2.1 MW
Cullerin Range	NSW	30	40%	11.9	May 2009	Repower 2 MW
Hallett #1	SA	95	40%	37.8	July 2009	Suzlon 2.1 MW
Hallett #2	SA	71	41%	28.8	August 2009	Suzlon 2.1 MW
Hallett #4	SA	132	39%	52.1	January 2011	Suzlon 2.1 MW
Hallett #5	SA	53	35%	18.2	September 2011	Suzlon 2.1 MW
Gunning	NSW	47	39%	18.2	June 2011	Acciona 1.5 MW
Lake Bonney Stage 1	SA	81	26%	20.8	March 2009	Vestas 1.75 MW
Lake Bonney Stage 2	SA	159	25%	39.9	August 2009	Vestas 3 MW
Lake Bonney Stage 3	SA	39	26%	10.2	August 2010	Vestas 3 MW
Name	State	Installed MW	Capacity factor	Power generated Ave. MW	Data starting from	Turbine
Mt Millar	SA	70	30%	20.8	January 2009	Enercon 2 MW
Portland Wind Energy Project	Vic.	102	37%	37.2	July 2009	Neg Micon and Repower
Snowtown	SA	101	41%	41.2	July 2009	Suzlon 2.1 MW
Starfish Hill	SA	35	27%	9.4	May 2008	Neg Micon 1.5 MW
Waterloo	SA	111	32%	35.5	October 2010	Vestas 3.0 MW
Wattle Point	SA	91	33%	30.2	May 2008	Vestas 1.65 MW
Waubra	Vic.	192	37%	71.9	August 2009	Acciona Windpower 1.5 MW
Woodlawn	NSW	48	33%	15.8	July 2011	Suzlon 2.1 MW
Woolnorth	Tas.	140	39%	53.9	March 2009	Vestas 1.75 MW and 3 MW
Yambuk	Vic.	30	31%	9.3	January 2009	Neg Micon
– Total Hallett	SA	351		136.8	Including Hallett #1, #2, #4 and #5
– Total Lake Bonney	SA	279		70.9	Including Stages 1, 2 and 3
Average			33.33%
Weighted average			34.54%	This is a very good figure, for an average, by world standards.

Notes:

AEMO's figures for the Portland Wind Project seem to include Cape Bridgewater and Cape Nelson South, but not Yambuk Wind Farm.
Neither the WA wind farms nor several of the smaller Victorian and NSW wind farms (eg. Blayney, Codrington, Crookwell, Toora and Wonthaggi) are included in the AEMO's listing.
Hallett surpassed Waubra as the most productive wind farm in Australia sometime in the third quarter of 2010 – as Hallett #4 started coming on-line.
I believe Neg Micon has been incorporated into Vestas.

Compare these figure with the installed capacities of major wind farms in Australia.

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Wind farm capacity factors in Australia
(Those farms listed by the AEMO)

From data starting at various dates and ending December 2012

The data for this graph are the same as those used in the table above. Capacity factors are explained elsewhere. A related concept is wind turbine efficiency.

Wind farm power generation in Australia
(Those farms listed by the AEMO)

From data starting at various dates and ending December 2012

The data for this graph are the same as those used in the table above, except that only the totals for Hallett and Lake Bonney are included here.

Altered 2013/02/12

Change in rate of generation with time and the age of the wind farm

Does the average generation (or capacity factor) of a wind farm increase or decrease as it ages?

Comment by Karina Lindvig of the European Wind Energy Association
"The Danish Wind Turbines Owners Association did an analysis which shows that there is no decrease in production over time. The production fluctuates over the years – obviously as there will be more wind in some years than in others. However, when you correct in relation to the given wind year the production is stable."
The EWEA's public response can be read here.
A document written by Gordon Hughs and published by the Renewable Energy Foundation claimed to show that the load factor (effectively the same as the capacity factor) of wind farms in the UK and Denmark decline greatly with the age of the wind farms (up to 15 years). For example Hughs claimed that the load factor of UK onshore wind farms declined from 24% at age 1 year to 15% at age 10 and 11% at age 15.

What is the story for Australia?

Based on 3240 turbine-years of data from the wind farms having at least two years of operation in the Australian eastern states grid it can be said that there is a variety of figures, with some slight decreases and more slight, or substantial, increases in output. (The data were obtained from the Australian Energy Market Operator.) The average change in generation was an increase of about 0.58MW for each year of operation of each wind farm.

Of 21 wind farms, seven showed a slight decline in generation with time and the remaining 14 showed a slight or substantial increase. Those that showed the greatest increases were Lake Bonney Stage 2, 4.0MW each year; Waterloo, 3.9MW each year; and Waubra, 2.3MW each year.

Australia's wind farms run at a weighted average capacity factor of about 35%; it is doubtful that the capacity/load factor of UK wind farms was ever as low even as the 24% claimed by Hughs; 15% and 11% are beyond belief.

I can only speculate that the likely causes of the general increase is an increase in the expertise of the operators and fine tuning of the turbines with time.

It seems quite increadible that the wind farms in Australia could be performing so well with time while European wind farms performed as poorly as claimed by Hughs. I suggest that Hughs' document is no more than another of the lies attempting to discredit wind power and probably funded by the fossil fuel industry.

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Updated 2011/07/15

How does Australia compare to the rest of the world?

Leading countries in wind power in 2010							National statistics
Country	MW	Rank	MW per US$b GDP	Rank	Watts per capita	Rank	Population, Millions	Land area, km²
China	44 733	1	4 436	7	34	24	1330	9 573 000
USA	40 200	2	2 749	16	130	8	310	9 159 000
Germany	27 214	3	9 282	4	333	4	82	357 000
Spain	20 676	4	15 153	3	445	2	46	499 000
India	13 065	5	3 265	13	11	35	1173	2 973 000
Italy	5 797	6	3 273	12	95	14	61	301 000
France	5 660	7	2 637	17	87	18	65	544 000
UK	5 204	8	2 386	19	83	19	62	244 000
Canada	4 009	9	3 014	15	119	11	34	9 971 000
Portugal	3 898	10	15 855	2	345	3	11	92 000
Denmark	3 752	11	18 468	1	680	1	6	43 000
Japan	2 304	12	535	34	18	33	127	378 000
Netherlands	2 237	13	3 306	11	133	7	17	42 000
Sweden	2 163	14	6 139	6	238	6	9	450 000
Australia	1 890	15	2 142	21	93	16	22	7 682 000
The above information came from cleantechnica.com Note: Australia past 1890 MW early in 2010								New Internationalist
Also see a graph showing installed wind power per capita within Australia.

Australia has been slow to move into sustainable energy in general and wind power in particular.

Germany has one twenty-first the land area of Australia, yet has about 14 times as much wind power (and hugely more solar power). Spain has about twice the population of Australia, a fifteenth the land area, yet about 11 times as much wind power. Little Denmark, with a quarter our population and 0.6% of our land area has about twice our wind power (Denmark has a higher percentage of wind power than any other country). Even the USA, a nation whose federal administration has, until the recent past, been notoriously against doing anything about greenhouse/climate change, has about 21 times as much wind power as Australia.

Australia had about 2.5GW of installed wind power at the end of 2011; in just that year China installed 16 to 18GW; seven times the total in Australia.

It is interesting to look at wind power in terms of megawatts per billion dollars of gross domestic product (forth column and ranking in fifth column). In this Demark is ahead of Australia by a factor of eight, Portugal ahead by a factor of seven, and Australia comes 21st (fifth column) in the world. Every nation on the table other than Japan is ahead of Australia in MW/$b GDP. New Zealand (not on the table), with 4224 MW/$b GDP, ranks eighth in the world and even countries like Greece, Bulgaria, Costa Rica and India are ahead of Australia. China has twice the investment in wind power per dollar GDP that Australia has. It is interesting that China installed 8 GW of wind power in the first half of 2011 alone – almost four times the total installed wind power in Australia in just six months!

The sixth column shows Watts of installed wind power per capita in the listed countries, with the world ranking shown in the seventh column. In this too, Australia comes a poor 16th.

Australia has huge potential for developing wind power, but has been notably slow in doing so.

The proportion of electricity that can be generated by wind before problems relating to variability of supply become intolerable has been debated for years. The magazine Wind Power Monthly reported that Denmark generated 31.5% of its power by wind in January 2008 (apparently January is its windiest month) and had generated even more in January 2007 (35.5%). Even more important, the article stated that there had been no need to constrain production from the turbines at any time. (I believe that Denmark has the advantage of power-sharing with nearby Norway which has a large hydro-power resource.)

The southern hemisphere

I believe that Brazil has the greatest wind energy industry after Australia, reaching 1 GW installed capacity around July 2011. (Reported by Renewable Energy Magazine). Wikipedia stated that New Zealand had 615 MW installed capacity in June 2011.

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Updated 2011/12/11

Twenty percent by 2020

Australia's target of 20% renewable power by the year 2020

Kevin Rudd promised a mandatory renewable energy target (MRET) of 20% by 2020 before the November 2007 election, as of December 2009 there is little indication that sufficient renewable energy will be in place in time to reach the target.

Old sustainable energy
In the year to 2011/09/30 about 19 685 GWh of hydro-electricity was generated in Australia; this was up from previous years because of higher rainfalls (Clean Energy Council 2011 report). The Snowy Mountain Authority (SMA) and Hydro Tasmania (HT) generate about 15 TWh per year. Installed capacity of all other hydro-generators in Australia is about one third of that owned by SMA and HT, (DEWHA figures) so it is reasonable to assume that generation from them would be about 5 TWh/yr; giving a total for Australian hydro-power generation of about 20 TWh/yr. (This may be declining because of climate change, reducing rainfall, and hence less run-off and less water to run through turbines.)
The Rudd Government's stated target of 20% renewable energy by 2020 involved adding 20% new renewable energy above the baseline at the time the MRET was promised. If Australia is to reach the target then we will require about 42 TWh/yr of new renewable energy and a total of 62 TWh/yr of renewable generation by 2020.

Little new hydro capacity is being built, so we can figure on hydro making up no more than 20 TWh (see the box on the right) of the 62 TWh/yr required by 2020. This leaves a deficit of 42 TWh to be generated by technologies other than hydro.

Installed wind power in Australia in April 2011 was 2.01 GW. I have not been able to obtain any figures for actual wind power generation for the whole of Australia, but using a capacity factor of 34% we can calculate about 6.0 TWh per year from the installed capacity.

It seems unlikely that forms of sustainable energy other than hydro and wind can make up more than 5 TWh/yr by 2020, see Sustainable Energy – Overview. Wind currently makes up just over 90% of new renewable energy, so it seems that if we are to reach the target, wind power will have to fill most of the gap. So, if we are to have 62 TWh/yr of renewable energy by 2020 it is likely to be made up of about 20 TWh (old) hydro, wind at least 37 TWh, and other probably less than 5 TWh (20+37+5=62).

In Australia's wind power potential I argue that the potential installed wind power in Australia is more than 91 GW, and the amount of generation then would be more than 241 TWh p.a.

Will Australia reach 20% by 2020?

Australia's wind power will need to be increased from 6 TWh to 37 TWh if we are to reach the 20% renewable energy by 2020 target. To generate 37 TWh per year a total of about 12.5 GW installed wind power is needed; we now (April 2011) have 2 GW install wind power, we need another 10.5 GW to get to 12.5 GW; there are nine years to 2020, so about 1170 MW will have to be installed each year, or more than one 3 MW turbine installed every day.

In April 2011 there were nine wind farms under construction in Australia. It takes about eighteen months to build a wind farm and there were 413 wind turbines (with an average capacity of 2.3 MW each) in the farms under construction; so this equals a construction rate of three turbines every four days, well short of what is needed (although the rate has picked up substantially from a year or so earlier). Putting the figures in MW, we need 3.2 MW of turbines constructed each day, and the present rate of construction is 1.7 MW/day.

Year GWh Year GWh
2011 10 500 2016 22 500
2012 12 500 2017 27 000
2013 14 000 2018 32 000
2014 16 500 2019 36 500
2015 17 500 2020 41 000

The approximate legislated annual renewable energy targets are shown in the table on the left. So most of the work needs to be done in the last five of the twenty year period. As of October 2011 it is looking like a Liberal Party dominated federal government will be back in power in the next few years and that they will not be wanting to take any serious actions to slow climate change. My opinion, based on evidence given in another page on this site is that a Liberal government will cancel the 20% by 2020 renewable energy target soon after they get into power.

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Small wind disadvantaged against solar

The Australian Government offers substantial subsidies for the installation of solar photovoltaic panels on homes and small businesses anywhere in Australia. However, if you want to install a small wind generator and you are connected to the electrical grid you get nothing.

This produces an unfair discrimination against the small-scale wind industry. Why would you pay full price for a small wind turbine when you can get thousands of dollars from the government to install solar?

Wind turbines and sailing ships

Wattle Point Wind Farm in the early morning

In April 2005 I visited the then new Wattle Point Wind Farm on the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia and was struck by the thought that, in some ways, wind turbines are to conventional power stations what sailing ships are to motor vessels. Motor vessels and sailing ships both have been used to move people and freight from one place to another, conventional power stations and wind turbines both generate electricity.

Both sailing ships and wind turbines are graceful and are works of art, while motor vessels and fossil fuel power stations are simply practical and are means-to-an-end.

Both sailing ships and wind turbines are sustainable; motor vessels and conventional power stations are not, because of the finite reserves of fossil fuels they burn and the damaging carbon dioxide and other pollutants they dump into the atmosphere.

To anyone who says that a wind turbine is not a work of art I would say go and stand in the middle of a modern wind farm and watch while the sun sets. If you go with an open mind you cannot help seeing their beauty and grace: quietly powering our energy-hungry life styles while doing very little harm to the environment. I don't mind admitting that they fascinate me.

Ironically, motor vessels replaced sailing ships, yet wind turbines are, to some extent, replacing fossil fuel fired power stations. With greenhouse and the approaching end of oil, will we one day see the return of sail?

Proposed solar/wind/wave powered cargo ship, Orcel – Credit Solar Navigator

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No level playing field

Relative cost estimates vary depending on the source of the information. These are displayed to give some indication of relative costs and should not be considered accurate. The cost of wind power is discussed in greater depth elsewhere.

Electricity generating costs in Australia

Cost of electricity generated by various methods, including capital costs
Adapted from Geodynamics Annual Report 2004; Geodynamics is a hot-dry-rock company, and the commercial viability of that energy source has never been demonstrated.
Note that wind-generated electricity is not greatly more expensive than the estimated cost of 'responsible' coal-fired power (Coal with geosequestration). Note also that coal-fired power with geosequestration of carbon dioxide has never been proven at any price, so who knows what the price may be? Solar here, I believe, refers to photo-voltaic.

Fossil fuelled electricity generation is currently cheaper than wind generated electricity, because the fossil fuel industry is subsidised and environmental pollution costs are not paid by the fossil fuel industry.

Economists and politicians often make statements such as "Non fossil fuel methods of power generation cannot yet compete financially on a level playing field with fossil fuel fired power stations".

There is no level playing field! Fossil fuel power stations release their damaging carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere at no cost to their operators, while the cost to the planet will be huge. If the fossil fuelled power generators were forced to dispose of their emissions responsibly then the playing field would become level; and they would not be able to compete with some of the more advanced environmentally friendly alternatives. (Also see Fossil fuel electricity in perspective.)

The Australia Institute produced a report titled "The nature and extent of Federal Government subsidies to the mining industry" dated April 2012 and authored by Matt Grundoff. The report stated that the Federal Government alone provides $4 billion annually to the mining industry in subsidies and concessions; this does not include the cost of providing the mining industry with infrastructure, nor State Government susidies.

It is difficult to imagine any cheaper way of getting energy than by digging coal out of the ground, moving it a couple of kilometres, and burning it in a power station. It is as cheap as it is irresponsible, polluting, and unsustainable.

Geosequestration is one way that the fossil fuel industry is hoping to dispose of its carbon dioxide (the Government is subsidising research for them).

The graph on the right compares the costs of various forms of electricity, including the estimated cost of 'responsibly' generated coal-fired power (third from the left). No-one has yet proven this form of generation in practice.

The $64/MWh for coal-fired power with geosequestration on the graph is probably a minimum. Other researchers calculate between Aust$74 and $130; see the cost of geosequestration on my Greenhouse page.

Interestingly, a Queensland government site (http://www.energy.qld.gov.au/infosite/electricity_generation.html, no longer available), gave the cost of nuclear generated electricity as $190-$250/MWh.

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The number of homes supplied by a given wind farm

It is almost a tradition for wind farm developers, when announcing a new wind farm, to state how many homes it could supply. I haven't used this on my pages, believing it to be vague and of little value. There is a huge variation in the amount of power used by various households, and since wind farms do not generate power continually they cannot supply all the power needed by a single house, let alone several thousand houses.

How many homes do various companies equate to one installed MW of wind farm?

Company No. homes per MW Wind farm
AGL 570 Brown Hill Range (Hallett)
Acciona 740 Waubra (Ballarat)
Epuron 400 Silverton (Broken Hill)
Repower 700 Ceres Project (Yorke Peninsula)
Pacific Hydro 500 Challicum Hills (Ararat)
Roaring 40s 500 Woolnorth (NW Tasmania)
Verve 700 Albany
WestWind 571 Lal Lal (Ballarat again)

Why the variation? Perhaps it is due to the perceived quality of the local wind resource, perhaps it depends on how much power households use in different regions, perhaps it is only due to variations in the estimations of company public relations people?

The numbers above vary from 400 to 740 homes per installed megawatt. If we assume a 35% capacity factor we can calculate that an installed megawatt will generate 350 kW on average. If 350 kW will supply 400 homes (at Broken Hill) then the assumption is 875 Watts per home; if it will supply 740 homes (at Ballarat) then the assumption is 470 Watts per home.

How big can wind turbines get?

The first wind farm in Australia was Salmon Beach, which was commissioned in March 1987 at Esperance. It consisted of six 60 kW turbines.

As of September 2010 the largest wind turbines in Australia were the 3 MW (3000 kW) units in use at Lake Bonney and Waterloo wind farms. These have steel towers about 80m high and fibre glass blades about 44m long.

Roaring 40s are considering 3.3 MW turbines for their proposed Stony Gap and Robertstown wind farms.

The technical challenges of lifting loads of nearly 100 tonnes (the Nacelle, including gearbox, dynamo, cooling system, etc.) to heights of around 80m are considerable.

In some European off-shore wind farms, turbines of 6 MW are now being used. They have blades of up to about 65m long (the wingspan of a Boeing 747-400 aircraft is 64.67m – that's the length from wingtip to wingtip). When assembling these turbines, instead of raising the whole of the nacelle and its contents in one lift, as has generally been done in Australian wind farms, I believe that the main components of the nacelle are raised in separate lifts.

One limit to the size of a wind turbine seems to be in the size and perhaps more importantly, the cost, of the crane needed and the difficulty of lifting very heavy loads to great heights.

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Energy return on investment (EROI)

Energy Return On Investment for a number of energy sources

Image credit: Meta-analysis of net energy return for wind power systems (2010, Elsevier, Renewable Energy); Ida Kubiszewski, Cutler J. Cleveland, Peter K. Endres EROI for power generation systems. Nuclear (2) omits the extreme outliers from the group of Nuclear (1), and thus represents a better assessment of what the EROI for nuclear is likely to be. See the original paper for more information.

EROI is an important concept in the energy industry. It is defined as the ratio between the useful energy got out of a process against the energy needed for that process; in simple terms, energy out against energy in. As an example, petroleum in the past has typically had an EROI ratio of around 30:1, that is, thirty units of energy obtained from the oil or gas for each unit of energy consumed in finding, pumping and refining the oil or gas. (The EROI is often written as a simple number, ie. 30 rather than 30:1.)

Importantly the EROI for petroleum is declining as more wells have to be drilled, more pumping done, more high-tech processes used, to obtain the same amount of oil.

It has been suggested that if EROI for our most important energy sources gets down to 10:1 it will begin to have a heavy impact on the modern way of life.

Studies on EROI for many of the energy industries have been reported on The Oil Drum and in particular Dr. Cutler Cleveland and Ida Kubiszewski posted an article describing a meta-analysis on the EROI of wind power on The Oil Drum.

From Cleveland and Kubiszewski's data the following can be extracted;

Energy return on investment for wind power
Country Number of
values recorded
in each country Average EROI
Belgium 2 29
Denmark 12 28
Germany 28 17
Japan 9 10
Switzerland 2 4
USA 4 20
Overall average 18

It should be noted that there is a huge range of EROI values, indicating that the industry is not mature. As the industry matures businesses will learn to develop wind power in areas and using methods that maximise the EROI value.

Cleveland and Kubiszewski calculated an overall average EROI of 18.1, placing "wind energy in a favourable position relative to conventional power generation".

Unfortunately, Cleveland and Kubiszewski's data did not include any information on Australian wind farms. ESIPC (SA Electricity Supply Industry Planning Council) does not record EROI figures for South Australian wind farms.

Kurt Cobb has posted on EROI in the Energy Bulletin. Some of his figures for energy sources other than wind are in the table below (I added wind):

Energy return on investment
Energy source EROI or Range Comment
Wind Around 18 See above
Crude oil Around 20 Conventional
Tar sands 1 to 7 Figures vary greatly
Coal 80 but falling
Nuclear 2 to 11 Figures vary greatly
Solar ? Figures vary greatly
Hydro-electric very high

EROI x Scale for fossil and renewable energy sources

EROI against total energy

The figure on the right gives a different perspective on the EROI picture.

The original of the figure was posted on the Oil Drum. It relates primarily to US data.

The distance the balloons are from the bottom shows increasing energy return on energy invested. The distance from the left shows increasing power obtained from that source.

Click on the image for a larger, clearer, view.

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Wind forecasting

If Australia is to reach PM Rudd's stated target of 20% renewable energy by 2020 then wind energy will become a large component of the electricity supply and the forecasting of wind velocities should be, and is being, improved.

Denmark successfully produces some 20% of its electricity by wind farms and plans to increase this to 40% in the future. The Danish Wind Energy Association has confirmed (pers. com.) the need for detailed wind forecasting if a large component of wind power is to be used. Denmark has the advantage of being part of a large European power grid. Australia, on the other hand, has the advantage of being much bigger than Denmark; a wind change on the west coast of Eyre Peninsula will take a long time to affect wind farms in Victoria or eastern NSW.

An effective and efficient wind forecasting system is obviously important for the further development of wind power in Australia.

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Updated 2013/02/09

Cost of wind power

RenewEconomy reported in 2013/02/07 "that new wind farms could supply electricity at a cost of $80/MWh – compared with $143/MWh for new build coal, and $116/MWh for new build gas-fired generation."

Renewably generated electricity has been more expensive than fossil-fuel fired electrical generation (unless the environmental costs of burning fossil fuels is taken into account), but this is changing. In mid 2012 it seems that the cost of wind and solar photovoltaic is becoming competative to new coal, gas and nuclear. The costs of solar PV power has fallen more quickly than utility scale wind power.

In October 2012 wholesale power prices have fallen to quite low levels, partly due to reduced power consumption. Some retail power prices are also being reduced, in South Australia at least.

Cost per megawatt-hour
To calculate the costs, per MWh, of wind power requires knowledge of the costs of the finance needed to build the wind farms and the costs of running them. It seems that the most important variable in the price of wind power is the cost of obtaining the finance for building the wind farms (see Terry Teoh's comment below). (Also see the cost of wind power compared to solar power and Are wind farms the cause of rising electricity prices?.)

Estimated costs of generation for Brown Hill Range Wind Farm
Capital cost $233m
Annual cost of capital at 7.5% $17.5m
Annual cost of operations $6.75m
Total annual costs $24.2m
Annual generation 327 000 MWh
Cost of producing electricity $74/MWh
This figure is similar to estimates by Scientific American, listed on my Sustainabe energy page.
The cost of power is very dependent on the cost of capital.

Cost of power from Hallett #1, based on SKM report
SKM (Sinclare Knight Merz) produced a report for AGL entitled 'Economic Impact Assessment of the Hallett Wind Farms' in which they gave costs of development, construction and operations of the first two of AGL's Hallett wind farms. This report was based on data up to June 2010, so the annual operating costs are based on a very short record; the first Hallett wind farm (Brown Hill Range, Hallett#1) was commissioned in June 2008.
The estimated costs of generation for Brown Hill Range given in the table at the right are based on the SKM report and on my own calculation of generation from the AEMO data, as explained in power generation of wind farms. Estimates for the cost of power from all the Hallett Wind Farms are at Generation costs at Hallett.

Wind Farm $/MWh
Canunda $76
Capital $70
Challicum Hill $76
Clements Gap $79
Cullerin Range $53
Hallett #1 $73

Cost of power from some other wind farms, using a relationship stated in an EWEA report
The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) produced a report named "The Economics of Wind Energy" in March 2009. This gave the cost of operations and maintenance of wind farms as 13.5 Euros/MWh (=Aus$19.1/MWh on 2011/03/19) of power generated. Using this figure, 7.5% as the cost of capital, and the published figures for the costs of the wind farms one can calculate the costs of electricity generated in the table on the right.
Note that this estimate for the power from Hallett #1 is very close to the figure calculated from the SKM report for AGL above.

Marginal cost of wind power
Wikipedia, 2012/07/17, stated that "Wind power has low ongoing costs, but a moderate capital cost. The marginal cost of wind energy once a plant is constructed is usually less than 1 cent per kWh [$10/MWh]."

Article in Renew Economy on Snowtown Wind Farm and costs
An article was written by Giles Parkinson on 2012/05/07 in which it which it was stated that:
"According to a report from Deutsche Bank analysts, Snowtown 2 has a long-run marginal cost (LRMC) of around $77/MWh, courtesy of the extremely rich wind resource, which is expected to deliver a capacity factor of around 43 per cent. The first stage of the Snowtown project, a 110MW facility constructed in 2009, delivered a capacity factor of 45 per cent and had a LRMC of around $74/MWh.

The average capacity factor in Australian wind farms is around 33 per cent – a factor which, if applied to Snowtown, would push its LRMC up to around $95/MWh. Indeed, it is thought that this is around the cost of Australia's largest wind project, the 440MW Macarthur wind farm jointly owned by AGL Energy and another New Zealand company, Meridian Energy."
(I would have to disagree slightly with some of these figures, the capacity factor for Snowtown Stage 1 is 41% rather than 45%. The weighted average for all the larger eastern Australian wind farms is 35%, very close to the given 33%. I would agree that Snowtown 1 has about as high a capacity factor as any other Australian wind farm.)

Wind energy cutting electricity costs
In an article in Climate Spectator, Why wind is cutting energy costs, Giles Parkinson argues that wind power is actually forcing electricity prices down. I will not go into the details here.

Costs of various forms of power from a US Congressional report

Levelized cost of power, 2008 dollars per megawatt-hour
Case Wind Pulverised
coal Nuclear Natural Gas
CC
Base case $67 $64 $60 $63
Carbon cost considered $67 $80 $60 $70
CC is combined cycle
The report was by the Congressional Research Service, titled "Wind Power in the United States: Technology, Economics, and Policy Issues", dated 2008/06/20 and written by Jeffrey Logan and Stan Mark Kaplan.
The costs are similar to those I have calculated above; a little lower, perhaps because they were calculated a few years earlier. It is interesting to note that even though the authors placed a fairly low cost on carbon pollution they still decided that wind power was the cheapest form of those that they tabled.

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Capital costs of wind power

Capital cost per Watt
Wind farm Per installed Watt Per generated Watt
Brown Hill Range $2.46 $6.23
Bungendore WF $1.56 $5.95
Canunda $2.01 $6.68
Challicum Hill $1.45 $5.11
Clements Gap $2.38 $7.02
Cullerin $1.67 $4.01
Lake Bonney #2 $2.52 $11.05
Snowtown $2.22 $5.64
Starfish Hill $1.86 $6.88
Wattle Point $2.47 $7.54
Waubra $1.70 $4.65
Average $2.03 $6.43
The figure used for the capital cost of Wattle Point Wind
Farm was the reported sale price of $225m in 2007.
The cost of building wind farms is often stated by the organisations that build them – the total costs of the farms I've listed in the table on the right are given in the sections on the relevant farms.
In the table I give the capital costs per Watt, as well as I can calculate them, for several wind farms. Please note that the table gives the cost of building a wind farm divided by the maximum number of Watts that wind farm is capable of generating (cost per installed Watt) and the number of Watts it has generated on average (cost per generated Watt).
In dollar terms, the cost of building wind farms has increased in the last few years, at least partly due to substantial increases in the price of steel. Against this is a longer-term trend for the cost of wind turbines, per MW, to decrease. Factors such as these cause variations in the capital costs of wind farms with time. At least some of the variation in the costs per installed Watt would be due to the time of construction; a significant factor in the cost per generated Watt is the capacity factor achieved by the farm.
Unlike fossil-fuelled, or nuclear, power stations, once the wind farm is built there are, of course, no further costs for fuel; the capital cost is by far the greatest cost of wind power.
In the first column is the capital cost per installed Watt and the second column gives the cost per generated Watt. The prices per generated Watt are calculated from the capacity factors that I calculated in January 2011.
Cost of solar PV declining
Climate Spectator carried an article on declining prices of solar PV, 2012/05/17, (relating to a paper published on Bloomberg New Energy Finance). The report suggested that "fully installed system cost of $3.01/Watt for 2012 and $2.00/Watt for 2015" and that the cost of power generated by solar PV was now below residential grid-price parity in a number of countries including Australia.
Also see costs for community-owned solar.

True cost of coal
Climate Progress published an article that discussed the true cost of coal when the economic, health and environmental costs are all taken into account. The original research was published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences by Dr. Paul Epstein. It was calculated that if the true costs of coal was considered the price of electricity from coal fired power stations would rise by about 18 cents per kilowatt-hour (or $180/MWh).

Compared to nuclear
In a guest post by Dr Chris Uhlik on Brave New Climate (http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/01/21/ the-cost-of-ending-global-warming-a-calculation/ – No spaces in URL) the cost of building nuclear power stations in 2011 was estimated at US$3.00/Watt, although Uhlik did say that one power station, Shoreham, cost $15/Watt. Note that these prices apparently did not include decommissioning and waste disposal costs. (He also stated that 'Current projects in China are ~$1.70/Watt.')

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Altered 2012/11/04

Community funding by wind farmers

Many Australian wind farm operators donate money for the use of the community around their wind farms. The amount distributed varies greatly, with Hepburn being by far the most generous of the wind farm operators and Energy Infrastructure Trust (operator of Wattle Point Wind Farm and a wholly owned subsidiary of ANZ) donating very little (based on inquiries that I made in the Edithburg area).

In some cases the amount is based on the number of turbines, for example $1666 per turbine per year for Gullen Range in NSW, in other cases it is simply a figure for the whole wind farm, for example $50 000 per year for Clements Gap. At least some of the funds are linked to the CPI (and will not be eroded by inflation in future years).

Alphabetical listing of wind farms and the associated community funding

Wind farm		Total funding $1000/yr	Per turbine $/yr
Capes Bridgewater/Nelson (Pac. Hydro)		$90	$1765
Canunda (International Power)		$4	$174
Challicum Hills (Pac. Hydro)		$50	$1429
Ceres Project (Proposed; RePower)		$150	$754
Clements Gap (Pac. Hydro)		$50	$1852
Codrington/Yambuk (Pac. Hydro)		$50	$1471
Cullerin Range (Origin)		$25	$1667
Gullen Range (Epuron)		$140	$1666
Gunning (Acciona)		$31	$1000
Hallett group (AGL)	Hallett #1; Brown Hill Range	$15	$333
	Hallett #2; Hallett Hill	$15	$441
	Hallett #4; Bluff Range	$15	$600
	Hallett #5; North Brown Hill	$15	$238
Hepburn (Hepburn Wind, intended donation)		$30	$15 000
Snowtown (Trust Power)		$15	$313
Waterloo (Energy Australia)		Unknown	Unknown
Waubra (Acciona)		$64	$500
Notes: For the purpose of community funding Pacific Hydro combines nearby Codrington and Yambuk as one unit, and Capes Bridgewater and Nelson as another.

I did chase community funding figures for these...
Wind farm	Inquired
Lake Bonney, Bungendore (Infigen)	2010/09/20	No reply
Cathedral Rocks (Roaring 40s)	2010/09/21	No reply
Snowtown (Trust Power)	2010/09/20	No reply
Starfish Hill, Toora, Windy Hill (Transfield)	2010/09/21	No reply
Wattle Point (Energy Infrastructure Trust – ANZ)	2010/09/21	No reply
Gunning (Acciona)	2010/09/21	No reply
It is probable that all of the above companies provide very little community funding.
Mount Millar (Meridian)	Replied, see text.

More information on the funding relating to specific farms can be read on my state pages. The community funding section is generally near the bottom of the wind farm information.

The table on the left lists all those wind farms for which I've been able to find data on community funding. One would suppose that the others probably provide less community funding (otherwise the information would be easy to come by).

It seems that it is not uncommon from wind farm companies to provide no more than around $500 per turbine per year in community funding; yet they are paying farmers $7000 to $14 000 per turbine per year for hosting the turbines. Perhaps some more generosity would increase public acceptance of turbines? Or perhaps the companies should place more resources into getting some local ownership into their wind farms as a way of increasing support?

Individual landowners negotiate with wind farmers for acceptable lease arrangements; should communities have some right to negotiate for community contributions from the wind farmers? They do not have at present.

Note that Hepburn Wind (by far the most generous company in terms of the donation per turbine; see table on the left) is a community owned wind power company and has two turbines.

Verve Energy, WA

Verve own all the major WA wind farms. Craig Carter, Senior Electrical Engineer for Verve, gave me the following: "We don't publicise these [community funding] figures as each project is assessed on a project specific basis, with benefits to the community spread across a variety of areas including tourist infrastructure, funding towards local projects, local employment, etc." It is a pity that Verve do not publish their figures; are they not proud of them?

Meridian

Meridian is a NZ-based company that owns the Mount Millar Wind Farm in SA. They provide community funding in relation to their NZ hydro and wind operations (Te Apiti, Waitaki, Manapouri Te Anau, White Hill, and West Wind), but apparently none for the community around Mount Millar. To get it "from the horse's mouth", go to Meridian, "About us" and "Community funding".

Transfield

Transfield own several wind farms. If they do not provide any community funding, as seems likely, it is a great loss to the communities that host Transfield's wind farms.

Compulsory funding?

Terry Teoh of Pacific Hydro (one of the most generous companies) made the following comment on 2010/09/14.

"There has been discussion recently in Victoria and NSW by the bureaucrats to make the sustainable community fund compulsory. We are quite concerned about this. The wind industry came to this voluntarily as a way to establish our ethical compass. By making it compulsory, the bureaucrats would destroy the purpose and value of the fund. If Council is used as the fund administrator, it would become a Council budget line, with the State government then reducing their support to Council to compensate. So making the community fund would have the perverse effect of reducing overall funding into the community."

(I am cynical enough to believe that councils and state governments might use the voluntary payments from wind farmers as an excuse to reduce funding too!) Some companies are generous, others apparently give very little. Is this fair? Perhaps some level of compulsory funding would be better? Or perhaps making these figures more widely known will place pressure on those companies that are lagging to lift their game?

Updated 2012/10/30

Community investment in wind energy

Also see Community wind farms.

Denmark and Germany have successfully developed community ownership of wind farms. A part of an article published in Wind Power Works about community-owned wind farms in Germany:

40% of local residents have invested in the Galmsbüll "Citizens' Wind Farm"
Community investment has helped Germany to become the most successful nation for wind power in Europe. At Marienkoog in the North Friesland region, dozens of local people have taken a share in their local wind farm and watched the turbines being constructed for the benefit of the neighbourhood.
When the older wind turbines at Marienkoog were replaced by fewer more powerful models, the local community was offered a third of the shares in the 'repowering' project. Altogether, in the Galmsbüll Bürgerwindpark (Citizens' wind farm), of which Marienkoog is part, a total of 240 residents invested 5 million euros. This represented 40% of the district's adult population.
One result has been general acceptance of the new taller wind turbines in the landscape of this mainly farming region close to the North Sea coast. The local council also receives income from the business tax paid by the wind farm.

A lot more could be done to give Australians the chance to invest in wind farm construction, especially in nearby wind farms, in Australia. Some degree of local ownership could increase acceptance of the wind farms.

There are a number of community funded wind farms either in operation or proposed in Australia. Hepburn (Vic) and Mouth Barker (WA) are operating, Denmark (WA) is under construction, and more are proposed: Fremantle (WA), Mt Alexander (Castlemaine, Vic) and New England (NSW). Infigen is trying to have one of its turbines at the proposed Flyers Creek Wind Farm community owned.

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Updated 2011/03/27

Payments to land-owners

When wind farmers build a wind farm on privately owned land (most are on privately owned land) they have to come to an agreement with the land owner. A very few land owners don't want wind turbines at all, but most see the turbines as causing little harm to their farming and the payments from the wind farmers as very significant additions to their farm incomes.

Land lease payments in the USA
A report by the Congressional Research Service, titled "Wind Power in the United States: Technology, Economics, and Policy Issues", dated 2008/06/20 and written by Jeffrey Logan and Stan Mark Kaplan gave the following: "Farmers and ranchers typically receive from project developers $2,000-5,000 per year for each turbine on their land". (Many US wind turbines are smaller than those in Australia, because they were built earlier.)
There may be a once-off payment for access, and there usually is an annual payment per turbine. Some years ago I heard that a typical payment for one turbine was $4000 per year. More recently I had a confirmed figure of $7000 per turbine per year for one wind farm (the company didn't want it to be commonly known, most of these deals are confidential). I have recently (July 2009) heard, second hand, unconfirmed, that some wind farmers are paying $12 000 to $14 000. Sometimes the payments are fixed as a proportion of the gross income from the sale of the electricity generated by the turbines.

Farmers should, for their own protection, make sure that the agreement that they sign does not leave them liable for decommissioning the turbines at the end of their useful life. Depending on how the decommissioning is done, it could be very expensive, especially if nearby native vegetation has to be protected in the decommissioning process.

Most wind farmers also donate money for community development projects.

Updated 2009/12/11

Wind power in territories

The 'states' pages cover wind farms within the Australian states. As of October 2009 there are no wind farms in the Northern Territory nor in the Australian Capital Territory (so far as I know). There is a wind farm in the Australian Antarctic Territory and on Cocos Island.

Australian Antarctic Territory Wind Farm

There are two 300 kW wind turbines at Mawson. The Australian Antarctic Division Net site I had is no longer valid. Quoting from the AAD Net page:

Two 300 kW wind turbines were installed at Mawson in 2003 and now make a significant contribution to the station's power requirements.

The Mawson wind turbine system ranks among the world's most innovative, and is capable of providing 600 kW of renewable power. Australia is the first country to obtain a significant electricity supply for its Antarctic stations fuelled by the most powerful winds on the planet.

Studies in the early 1990s revealed that the constant katabatic winds blowing from the inland of the continent make Mawson ideally situated to generate the bulk of its energy requirements with wind turbines.

The AAD worked closely with a German turbine manufacturer (Enercon) and an Australian company (Powercorp Pty Ltd) to install the turbines and the associated computerised powerhouse control system in early 2003.

Some statistics on the wind farm were on the AAD Mawson Net site, but this is no longer available.

I thank Lee Sice for alerting me to the AAD net page on the Mawson wind farm.

Cocos Island Wind Farm

There is a total of 800kw of wind power on Cocos (Keeling) Island.

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Acknowledgements

Much of the information on these pages has been gleaned from the Internet. I have visited all the South Australian and Victorian wind farms (as of mid 2008); some of what is on these pages comes from those visits. Important other information has come from people who have been kind enough to respond to my inquiries, and several people have volunteered very welcome information.

These acknowledgements are arranged in alphabetical order. I am indebted to a number of others who have provided information but have requested that their names not be mentioned (a pity, because I like to ascribe information sources to allow readers to judge credibility). My apologies to any informants who have helped but I have missed acknowledging.

Ahern, Rodney – TrustPower
Barnard, Mike – Mike writes on wind power; he has lived in Canada, Brazil and Singapore
Bethune, Dr Graeme – EnergyQuest
Blair Donaldson – Gippsland Friends of Future Generations
Bradshaw, Josh – Roaring 40s
Brennan, Frank – Wattle Range Council (SE SA)
Brooks, Roger – District Council of Yorke Peninsula
Burke, Dr Susie – Board Member, Climate and Health Alliance; and Senior Psychologist, Public Interest, Environment and Disaster Response, Aust. Psychological Soc. Nat. Office
Carter, Craig – Verve Energy
Chapman, Professor Simon – Expert Adviser, Climate and Health Alliance; and Professor, Public Health, University of Sydney
Clarke, David – Acciona
Clark, Nick – Millars Transport and Logistics PL.
Coombe, Steve – EHAMP Catchment Group
Courtrice, Ben – Friends of the Earth, Victoria; blogger
Crockett, Lane – General Manager, Pacific Hydro
Davey, Simon – Epuron
Delmarter, Clayton – TrustPower
Durran, Andrew – Epuron/Taurus Energy
Ecuyer, Danielle – Pamada (Kyoto Energy Park)
Edelman, Dr Sarah – Information on likely causes of symptoms commonly ascribed to 'wind turbine syndrome'
Engelmann, Mark – Information on the interactions between wind farms and weather
George, Miles – Infigen Energy, previously Babcock and Brown, Wind Partners
Gilmore, Joel – ROAM Consulting Pty Ltd
Gresham, Bill – Cartoonist and renewable power supporter
He, Tao Tao – Monadelphous Engineering Pty Ltd
Head, Michael – TRUenergy, Waterloo Wind Farm
Henderson, Geoff
Holmes à Court, Simon – Hepburn Wind
Hull, Dr Cindy – Hydro Tasmania, environmental expert
Jack, Ken – Originally of Stanwell Corp, more recently of Transfield?
Jevremov, Dijana – Roaring 40s
Joshi, Ketan – Data analyst at Infigen Energy
Keane, Sandi – Has exposed shonky practices from several parties
Knight, Steve – Vestas
Knill, Tim – AGL
Laurie, Dr Sarah – for her opinions on alleged harmful effects of wind turbine noise
Law, Julian – Macquarie Generation
Mackett, Adam – AGL
Mackie, Richard
Marcheson, Doreen – Wind Prospect
Miskelly, Andrew – Australian Landscape Guardians
Mounter, David – Roaring 40s
Nun, Richard – private citizen
Olsen, Peter; – Wind Turbines by Peter Olsen
Osmond, David – Windlab
Perry, David
Reed, Peter – Suzlon
Ryan, Brendan – Suzlon
Scheidegger, Oliver
Sgardelis, Peter – Repower
Sice, Lee – Information on Mawson Base, Antarctica
Sweatman, Chris – RES
Teoh, Terry – Pacific Hydro
Thompson, Daniel – Verve Energy
Trenerry, Jim – Investec and the Hawnsdale Wind Farm
Trompf, Jeffry – AGL
Weaver, Elizabeth – Origin
Walker, Cam – Friends of the Earth, Victoria
Wallis, Kad – AGL
Whorral, David – Hatch
Wheatley, Megan – Suzlon
Wittert, Professor Gary – Mortlock Professor and Head, Discipline of Medicine, University of Adelaide.
Woodroffe, Andrew – Mount Barker Wind Farm

Photo credits

I have tried to use photos that have some artistic merit; there are a great many on the Internet that do not. Several photos have come from the Net, several others were offered to me by a friend, the others are mine.

Argyle County Council – Crookwell Wind Farm
Bassett, Dave – Blayney Wind Farm
Rockenbauer, Klaus – Wind turbine art
Roddom, Wayne – Windy Hill Wind Farm
Rose, Sara – Emu Downs Wind Farm
Ryan, Brendan – Brown Hill Range, Coral Bay and Emu Downs wind farms

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Wind turbine art

Photo by Klaus Rockenbauer. More of his photos are on Flickr.

Here is something that has, so far as I know, never been done in Australia; a wind turbine used as an art form; or you could say, as a canvas on which to mount a work of art.

Klaus Rockenbauer placed a copy of the photo on the right on Flickr. It is of an Enercon turbine in Munich, Germany. Klaus said:

"On the blades of this wind turbine were placed about 9000 LED's. They draw motives in the night sky every day for about 7 hours. This art-object should be a sign to the energy problem worldwide and also is the biggest Christmas-star of the world."

The Osram Net site had a page on the turbine:

"Right on time for the first Advent Sunday it is obvious to all: But still it moves! Siemens – together with multimedia artist Michael Pendry – has lighted up the world's biggest revolving Christmas star. The lighting installation can be seen throughout December [2009] at the northern gateway to Munich – beginning at dusk every evening."

The entire installation uses only as much electricity as a hair dryer or a water kettle, yet in good weather it can be seen for 30 kilometres.

A similar thing could be done in Australia. It could have the potential to make turbines more of an attraction than they are at present.

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This section written 2011/01/18

Differences in turbines

This is not a subject that I have studied, but I can mention a few differences that I have noticed. As always, if I have made any errors I'd be pleased if someone can correct me.

Towers

Many older wind turbines have steel lattice towers, all industrial-scale wind turbines in Australia have tubular steel towers.

Rotation

Some turbines rotate at variable rates, for example Vestas; others rotate at a constant rate, for example Acciona at Gunning Wind Farm. Some turbines within older US wind farms rotate in opposite directions, all turbines in any particular Australian wind farm rotate in the same direction.

Downwind, upwind

Some older turbines have the blades on the downwind side of the tower; this has been found to lead to more noise due to the blades passing through the turbulent air from the tower. All Australian industrial-scale wind turbines have the blades upwind from the tower so that they can rotate in 'clean' air.

Rotating blades or blade-tips

In most Australian turbines the blade can be rotated as a whole (twisted about its long axis) to make it interact with the wind at the optimal angle, or to stop the turbine for whatever purpose. Some turbines, such as the Neg Micon ones at Starfish Hill Wind Farm have blade tips that can be rotated independently of the bulk of the blade.

Gear-box or not

Most electrical generators have to rotate at a much higher speed than the rotation rate of a wind turbine, so most wind turbines have a gear-box to increase the rotation rate something like ninety-fold compared to the turbine rotor. The Enercon turbines at Mount Millar Wind Farm have annular generators that do not require fast rotation and therefore have no gear-box. I don't know of any other turbines in Australia having annular generators than those at Mount Millar.

Wind speeds

Most Australian turbines can generate power from a wind that is at least four metres per second. Most turbines reach their rated power at about 14m/s, see Efficiency of wind turbines. Most turbines shut down, to protect themselves from damage, at about 25 m/s. The Vestas turbines at Collgar Wind Farm, near Merridin in WA, are rated at 1.86 MW, while the same model at Waterloo Wind Farm is rated at 3 MW. This is because the winds at Merridin are generally lighter than those at Waterloo.

Construction

Footings

If a turbine is built on bed-rock it can make use of 'rock anchors' to secure a relatively small concrete footing (about 220 tonnes) to the underlying bed-rock. If there is no shallow bed-rock, or the bed-rock is shattered, then heavier footings (about 800 tonnes), that are capable of holding the turbine in place without any attachment to underlying materials, must be used.

Order of assembly

Suzlon turbines are generally built by first placing the first two sections of the tower, followed by the next two tower sections, then the nacelle is lifted. The blades are attached to the hub on the ground and the final big lift raises the entire rotor. Apparently Acciona turbines generally have the hub and blades lifted and attached individually.

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Updated 2013/01/07

Community wind farms

Also see Community investment in wind energy.

TWIMBY

The rush of applications for involvement in the Mount Alexander community wind farm gave rise to the term TWIMBY; Turbines Wanted In My Back Yard.

There are several wind farms, or proposed wind farms, in Australia that have been called community owned. Those that I have come across are:

Operating or under construction:

Hepburn, Vic.;
Mount Barker, WA;
Denmark Wind Farm (WA) is under construction.

Most of German wind power is owned by German citizens

Credit: Wind-Works.org and Paul Gipe German solar PV is similar, 39% owned by individuals, 21% by farmers. It is very different in Australia, where big companies own most of the power generation, renewables and others. It doesn't have to be.

Proposed:

New England Wind Farm, NSW;
A cooperative called CENREC (Central NSW Renewable Energy Co-operative Ltd) has been set up to raise funds and purchase a turbine at Infigen's proposed Flyers Creek Wind Farm;
A group calling itself Central Coast Community Energy Association Incorporated (CCCE) is proposing a community owned renewable energy development from sun and wind near Woy Woy, just north of Sydney in NSW;
Fremantle Community Wind Farm (WA);
Mt Alexander Wind Farm (Castlemaine, Vic);
Infigen is trying to have one of its turbines at the proposed Flyers Creek Wind Farm community owned.

Community owned wind farm, or not?

When is a wind farm community owned? One would think that a community owned wind farm would be owned by the local community. One might think that anyone within the local community might have the right to partake in investment in the project.

Anyone can buy shares in Hepburn Wind Farm, there is no need for them to be local people. I am informed that there are only 13 share holders in Mount Barker Wind Farm, that one person has a 51% controlling interest and that it is 70% owned by the Great Southern Community.

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The Senate inquiry into the Social and Economic Impact of Rural Wind Farms: Some notes

My impression was that the report from the inquiry was reasonable and balanced. However, I did notice some errors:

Introduction Section 1.7. Installed capacities seems to have been confused with actual generation in the discussion of SA.
Noise and health Section 2.11 seismic waves have been confused with infrasound. See Seismic waves.
Noise and health Section 2.22 contains a quote from a person "who has 30 wind turbines within two kilometres of his home". It seems to me that the turbines at Waubra are too scattered for there to be 30 within 2km of any point. There would be 30 turbines within a 2km radius at Wattle Point, but no houses at any such point! I cannot think of any wind farm in Australia where this situation would be possible.
Property values Section 4.8; the quote is meaningless. The "last offer we received" could be the lowest offer received. How many offers were received? What was their range?
Property values Section 4.10; "it had been reported that properties had been devalued by 30 percent". (It has been reported, by ABC reporter Bronwyn Herbert, that most of Australia's wind farms are in Victoria! Actually more than 50% of wind power is in SA.) Many fallacies are reported; this is hearsay without any value.

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Updated 2012/11/05

Opinion surveys

Acceptance of wind farms

Pacific Hydro, November 2011

In November 2011 Pacific Hydro surveyed attitudes to wind energy in ten communities across Victoria, NSW and SA where wind farms were operating or proposed. The main results were:

Nationally – 83% support, 14% opposed, 3% undecided;
NSW – 77% support;
SA – 90% support;
Vic. – 84% support;

The research was done by Qdos, a branch of Interconsult. Pacific Hydro informed me that...

"The ... survey polled 1000 residents across 10 electorates in NSW, SA and Victoria that are in wind farming regions. The Victorian five electorates were also polled (by QDos) in 2010 as part of a similar sized survey (ten electorates in wind farming regions) which yielded very consistent results on wind farm attitudes as we saw from this year's survey.
Results at a macro-level (total survey results) are consistent with the results in each area. While not [every] electorate is statistically significant, the results are consistent across the regions and yield a reliable total result (to within a fairly small margin of error)."

The survey quized one hundred people in each of ten communities: Ripon, Ballarat West and South West Coast (all Victoria), Polworth, Macedon, Goulburn, Yass and Crookwell (all NSW) and Clare and Barossa Valley in SA.

CSIRO, November 2011

A few days before the Pac. Hydro report, CSIRO released a report, "Acceptance of Rural Windfarms in Australia: a snapshot". Some of its key findings were:

There is strong community support for wind farms;
There is more support than suggested by media reports;
Wind farmers might improve acceptance by developing a 'Social licence to Operate' approach.

Clean Energy Council, December 2011

I have become aware that another survey of wind power acceptance was carried out in late December for the Clean Energy Council, and while the results have not yet (2012/01/26) been officially released, the results showed in the vicinity of a 75% acceptance of wind farms. This survey was carried out by Market Metrics.

Mid North SA - TRUenergy

A Community Survey, March 2011, involving 358 people living near the existing Waterloo, and proposed Stony Gap and Robertstown wind farms. The survey indicated that 66% of respondents were concerned about climate change, 77% supported wind farms, 69% supported nearby wind farms, and a majority saw wind farms as positives for: appearance, tourism, local business, short term jobs, local economy and landholder income.

Bungendore, and others

Bungendore Wind Farm survey, May 2012
Infigen commissioned QDos Research to conduct a survey into the perceptions of Bungendore Wind Farm (in NSW) held by the local people. Infigen stated that the survey was motivated by a desire to show the facts about public support for the wind farm following "much debate surrounding public opinion on wind farms in Australia". The results were released in May 2012.

Distance from turbines
It is probable that most of the respondents to this survey would have been people who lived in Bungendore and Tarago. Bungendore is 11km from the nearest of the Bungendore turbines; Tarago is 8km from the nearest Woodlawn turbine.
Infigen calculated the approximate population of the area surveyed – Bungendore and Tarago – to be 3300. Of these 200 householders and 34 businesses were interviewed by telephone.
The survey report is available from Infigen's Net site. A small selection of the responses to the survey are:

Do you think generating electricity from wind farm benifits the environment?
Benefits, 75%; does not benefit, 10%
Good or bad for the local community?
13 times as many people said it was good rather than bad for the community.
Good or bad for local businesses?
More than 50% said good, only 1% said bad.

NSW Dept. Planning and Infrastructure survey: Bungendore, Cullerin Range, Woodlawn
The NSW Department of Planning and Infrastructure conducted surveys of people who live within four kilometres of the three above wind farms and reported on these surveys on 2012/05/18. The results are given in a pdf document.

Why the apparently differing results between the QDos and DPI surveys?
First; I am not a statistician, and I did not spend a lot of time examining the methodology and results from the surveys.
Second; obviously the questions are not the same.
Third; the QDos survey was by telephone, the DPI survey apparently was written.
It seems that the more positive results from the QDos survey could be due to the respondents predominantly living further away from the wind farm than those in the DPI survey.
The DPI survey results did not provide any corelation between the degree of annoyance and the distance from the turbines or between the respondent's attitude to turbines and their level of annoyance. The DPI survey did not ask for people's attitudes to wind turbines generally, this too could have been interesting because there is evidence of links between negativity and symptom reporting.
There is not space here for many of the results from the DPI surveys, so I have listed two of what I thought the more important results:

Bungendore

Distraction at night? (n = 30)
Nill or very little: 50%
Moderate: 10%
Highest levels: 40%
Impact on sleep? (n = 30)
No impact: 53%
Neutral or minor: 13%
High: 33%

Cullerin Range

Distraction at night? (n = 8)
Nill or very little: 38%
Moderate: 38%
Highest levels: 25%
Impact on sleep? (n = 8)
No impact: 38%
Neutral or minor: 38%
High: 25%

Woodlawn

Distraction at night? (n = 10)
Nill or very little: 60%
Moderate: 20%
Highest levels: 20%
Impact on sleep? (n = 9)
No impact: 56%
Neutral or minor: 33%
High: 11%

Councils and wind farms

I'm sure there are a huge number of aspects to the relationship between local government and wind farms; I'm only going to write of one at this time.

Council income and wind farms

Wind farms are very expensive developments. They have very high capital values. It is difficult to find out how much income councils get from wind farm developments.

In one of Acciona's newsletters (#18) for the Waubra Wind Farm it was stated that "Almost $1 million has been paid to Pyrenees Shire Council and City of Ballarat through rates".

In the minutes for the Waterloo/Stony Gap wind farm Community Liason Committee meeting minutes for August 2012 it was stated that about $50 000 was paid as planning fees for the six-turbine Waterloo stage 2 proposal; the corresponding figure for the 37-turbine Waterloo Wind Farm's planning fees were $196 000.

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Altered 2012/11/08

Who opposes wind power development?

Most, but not all, of the active opposition to wind power in Australia is based on misinformation, fallacies and hidden agendas. (The motivations of supporters and objectors are discussed elsewhere on this page.)

There are several main groups or classes of opposition:

The fossil-fuel industry – who do not want to loose market share to renewables and who have a strong influence over both the big political parties, but in particular, the Liberal Party;
The Liberal Party;
The Labor Party, while not being stridently opposed to renewable energy, like the Liberal Party, is half-hearted in its support of renewables. The Gillard Labor Government subsidises the fossil fuel industry with billions of dollars each year;
The media, who are perhaps more at fault from their desire for sensational and emotional reporting than being systematically and purposely opposed to renewables;
Those who (mistakenly) believe that wind turbines make people sick;
Those who (mistakenly) believe that wind farms are useless, are economically unjustified or cause more environmental harm than good;
Those who support wind power in general but oppose a particular wind farm for NIMBY reasons, for envy of neighbours who will profit while the objector misses out, for feelings of 'invasion of place' or similar reasons.
Those who believe that nuclear power is the only non-fossil fuel option (in fact the two are not mutually exclusive);
Those who simply don't like wind turbines and wind farms and don't look beyond their personal wants;
Perhaps some who feel we should be greatly reducing our energy consumption rather than ever increasing our energy generation.

Many of the people in these groups are willing to lie in an effort to achieve their aim of stopping wind farm development.

There is a very strong, organised and entrenched opposition to wind power in Australia. While the fossil fuel industry does not readily admit to opposing renewable energy it is very hard to immagine where else this lobbying and misinformation campaign could be coming from. Why should the Liberal Party be opposed to renewable energy development in Australia if they are not being pushed by the mining and fossil fuels industries? They must know that renewables are very popular among the Australian people, so they wouldn't be doing it for reason of chasing votes.

Opposition to renewable energy in the Murdoch media seems particularly strong; I wonder if this is due to links with the fossil fuel or mining industry.

I have written more on this subject on a dedicated page.

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Altered 2012/11/08

The motivation of wind farm supporters and objectors

Motivation and attitude

Motivation has a lot in common with attitude and our attitude to wind turbines can have important consequences to ourselves should we live near a wind farm.

Willingness to lie

It can be surprising how many people are willing to lie as a means of supporting their opposition to wind farms; see Wind Power Lies.

Age: an observation

Most wind power opponents seem to be over 50. (I should add that I am well over 60.)

In most other sections on the Wind Power pages I have tried to concentrate on the facts as I have learned of them. In this section I am making personal observations and speculations.

What motivates those who support and those who object to wind farms? Are the motivations selfish or altruistic? Are the supporters and objectors concerned mainly with local matters or with global matters? (I should say here that I do not necessarily condemn those who object for selfish reasons; we all have the right to look after ourselves; if we don't in many cases no-one else will.) Of course NIMBYism is relevant here.

Many supporters, including spokesmen for the wind farming companies, talk about the advantages that will accrue to the local area. Companies do not have motivations; it is only people who have motivations. The spokesmen for the wind farm companies, I suspect, in most cases are motivated by the need to convince the local people of the desirability of the wind farm.

Then there is the motivation of the bosses of the corporations involved. Several, perhaps most, of the companies that are operating or proposing wind farms also have heavy investment in fossil fuels: coal, gas, coal-seam gas. One would have to wonder how keen these people are to see wind power succeed.

Motivations of supporters and objectors
Supporters Objectors
Those who own the land on which the turbines are to be built will often, quite understandably, be wanting the significant additional income they see they will be getting if the wind farm is built. So many of these will be motivated by self-interest.
Many of the supporters, myself included, are motivated by a belief that climate change and ocean acidification are huge looming disasters and that renewable energy must be adopted to reduce the production of greenhouse gasses. So the motivation of this group is from a concern for the good of the biosphere and is altruistic.
Presumably those who do not live anywhere near wind farms, are not involved in the industry and support wind farms do so because they believe the world must change from fossil fuels to sustainable energy for environmental reasons; again, an altruistic motivation. I should comment here that this group have little to loose from the building of wind farms elsewhere than near them.
Wind farm objectors are of several distinct types. Those who object to having wind farms built near them are acting on selfish motives. There are the objectors who believe that the good of the local area, or the local people, needs to take a higher priority than the good of the earth as a whole.
Some oppose a nearby wind farm because of envy. They see that their neighbours are going to do very well financially, while they themselves seem to be missing out.
Many objectors will talk about bird and bat kills and claim that wind turbines are a waste of money; but one gets the impression that these are not their motivations. These are arguments that they have adopted because the objectors believe they are arguments that will support their cases. It is remarkable how many people become environmentalists when it suits their selfish ends to do so.
Many of the most vociferous objectors to renewable energy are motivated by the desire to support the fossil fuel industry, because their financial interests are in that industry. These are motivated by selfish aims and are unethical. These people will, of course, try to hide their true motivations, because they are usually quite aware of the immorality of their stance.
The Liberals, including Rowan Ramsey, must be motivated by a desire to support the mining and fossil fuel industries – who, in turn, support them with campaign donations.
In the case of Dr Sarah Laurie, who is an outspoken wind farm objector, my impression is that while her concern was triggered by a proposed local wind farm, her main motivation is that she (wrongly) believes that wind turbines are making people ill.
The 'supporters' column is much narrower than the 'objectors' column. Similarly there are many more vocal objectors than vocal supporters. Unfortuneatly it seems much more to be in human nature to complain about something that you see as to your personal disadvantage than to support something that you see as being to the advantage of all.

Interestingly, I have been told of one farmer who told his neighbour, "If I get turbines on my place I am for them, otherwise I'm opposed".

Also see my motivation for writing these pages.

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Altered 2013/03/10

Australian Landscape Guardians

This organisation is not, as its name implies and as it claims, concerned to protect the Australian landscape. It is concerned only with opposing wind power. To see that this is true you need only compare their Resources page – which is exclusively about wind farms – with their 'About' page, that claims many environmental interests.

Ted Baillieu was Premier of Victoria for a period up to March 2013 when he was replaced by Dr Denis Napthine. Baillieu passed laws that made it virtually impossible for anyone to obtain planning permission to build a wind turbine in that state. Lawyer Randall Bell is president of the Australian Landscape Guardians. Bell was reported by Aaron Langmaid in the Herald Sun as saying "Mr Baillieu's policy was the best in the world," and "If Dr Napthine reneges on that policy, I'll break his arms." (More at Some Air by Ketan Joshi.)

The ALG is an 'astroturfing' organisation, just as is the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA, a Liberal Party think tank) and the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF), both of which are linked to the ALG. The AEF is a classic astroturfer, having apparently chosen its name to sound very similar to the genuine environmental body, the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Organisations funded by the multinational oil corporation Exxon
ExxonSecrets (a Greenpeace project) lists organisations funded by Exxon. The Institute of Public Affairs set up the Australian Environment Foundation which went on to set up the Australian Climate Science Coalition
List: http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php
IPA: http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=150
ACSC: http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=163
The IPA has been called the Institute of Poppycock and Agitprop (agitprop – agitation and propaganda). Quite apt.
ABC TV's Media Watch did a segment on the IPA and AEF on 2012/03/19, linking them to another astroturfer, the so-called Australian Climate Science Coalition, which is actually an anti-climate science group. Significantly, Ian Plimer is a member of the 'Scientific Advisory Panel' of the ACSC. (Mr Plimer used to be Professor of Mining Geology at Adelaide University, where, I believe, he became something of an embarrasment due to his unscientific stance on climate change. He recently left the University to devote himself more fully to his considerable mining interests.)

To find out more about the ALG I suggest that you read Independent Australia's The ugly landscape of the Guardians. It is an excellent exposé of the ALG by Sandi Keane and goes into the links between the Waubra Foundation, the Australian Landscape Guardians, the Institute of Public Affairs, the fossil fuel industry and others.

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Altered 2012/02/06

About these pages

My motivation

Using these pages: some hints

The greater good?

It could be claimed that I am willing to lie in support of wind power, and justify that to myself by the belief that the lying is a small wrong that is more than made up for by 'the greater good' of delaying climate change. Not so. Apart from the ethical objection to lying, lies are usually detected in time and when that happens the liar is discredited. Lying would, in the long run, be counterproductive.

My motivation in writing these pages, in a word, is ethics. Everyone in the world, especially those who live in the countries that produce more than their fair share of the greenhouse gasses, has an ethical responsibility to try to reduce the rate of greenhouse gas production.

I have followed climate change science for thirty years or more; I have been reading and subscribing to Scientific American for about 35 years. Climate change and ocean acidification, both caused largely by the greenhouse gasses that humanity is putting into the atmosphere, will be disasters of a magnitude that few people even grasp. They will result in thousands or, more likely, millions of species becoming extinct; extensive changes to almost all of the world's environments; and the displacement and possibly the deaths of billions of people.

The development of renewable energy will slow the impact of climate change and ocean acidification. Wind power (followed increasingly closely by solar PV) happens to be the most market-ready form of renewable energy available to us in the early part of the 21st century.

I have no desire to see anyone harmed, but if we can significantly slow the onset of climate change at the cost of some thousands or tens of thousands of people world-wide being slightly inconvenienced by hearing and seeing wind turbines, I see that as a price well worth paying.

So, I want renewable energy to be developed as quickly as possible for the good of the planet and the best way in which that can be achieved is for people to be able to understand the facts of wind power, rather than the lies and delusions that seem common in those who are opposed to wind turbines.

Also see motivations of supporters and objectors to wind farms.

Facts and errors

If you find an error (of fact or omission) on a sustainable energy or any other page you will be doing me a favour by pointing it out so that I can correct it; my email address is daveclarkecb@yahoo.com and is also near the top of each page. Obviously, since my primary aim is ethical, misrepresentation of the facts cannot be acceptable to me.

My aim is that everything on these pages that is not plainly an opinion should be true and also verifiable. I'm not there yet, but I'm working on it.

Images

All photos on these pages are mine unless otherwise indicated. The background photo for the wind farm pages, and the title photo on this page, are of Wattle Point Wind Farm, Yorke Peninsula, SA. The title photo on the Wind Victoria page is of the Toora Wind Farm, that of the Wind SA page is of the Brown Hill Range Wind Farm and that of the Wind WA page is of the Albany Wind Farm.

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Why not in Wikipedia?

I considered working on the appropriate Wikipedia pages rather than writing these sustainable energy pages, but decided to 'do my own thing' for the following reasons:

Political comment seems inappropriate in Wikipedia pages on sustainable energy, but I believe criticism of governments is important if Australia is ever to substantially replace its fossil-fuel-based electrical generating systems with sustainable energy systems.
Any work that I do on a Wikipedia page can be altered or deleted by somebody else.
I have full control over the format of these pages.
I can request and receive feedback from readers.
I can work on the pages without being connected to the Net.
I have an ego; having put many hundreds of hours of work into these pages, I want my name on them.

What relative importance is placed on aspects of wind power on these pages?

Wind power subjects
Subject	Why do I consider it important?
The facts about wind power	There is a lot of fiction out there and it cannot be overcome unless people can also find the facts.
Standing of wind power in Australia	Wind is a major source of sustainable energy, and the fastest growing (although solar PV is giving it a nudge around 2011, 2012); people should be able to find the relevant information.
Government support	Australia has an ethical responsibility to reduce its massive greenhouse gas production rate; if companies and citizens do not behave ethically then government must take the responsible for forcing ethical practice on them.

Individual wind farms
In order of decreasing emphasis
Name(s) of wind farm	Identifies the project
Size of project	No. of turbines, size of each (in MW)
Status	Eg. Proposed, approved, construction, operating
Location	Important for obvious reasons
Generation	Particularly capacity factor; how effective is the wind farm?
When built?	To place it in a historical context
Community aspects	Does the owner contribute to a community fund? Do they try to keep the community and the world informed?
Who owns it?	Ownership changes, but I consider ownership by a company or a community organisation to be an important distinction.
Turbine make/type	Brand name of the turbines, type of turbines (eg. do they have a gearbox [most do], do they rotate at a constant or variable speed?)
Who built it?	The major contractors involved

My affiliations

I (David Clarke, the author of these pages) am independent of any company, lobby group, or government; however as of February 2012 I did have the following affiliations:

Moderator, Yes to Renewables – Australia;
Member, Community Liaison Group for Waterloo and Stony Gap wind farms;
Life member Trees For Life, South Australia;
I have financially supported the Australian Greens and was for many years a member of the Australian Democrats;
I have given donations to, and continue to support, various environmental conservation groups as well as general charities;
I am a supporter of 'Death with dignity';

I have never received payment for services from any wind power organisation; I have, however, sold rights to photographs to a number of organistations, including wind farmers.

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Wind farm index

General index to this page: Wind power in Australia

On this page...
About these pages
Acceptance of wind farms
Acknowledgements
Astroturfing organisations
Australian Antarctic Territory Wind Farm
Australian Landscape Guardians
Benefits of wind power
Biggest wind farms in Oz-graph
CO₂ abatement by wind farms
CO2 reduction from one wind turbine
Capacity factor
Capacity factors of wind farms-graph
Capital costs of wind power
Chronology of wind farm construction
Cocos Island Wind Farm
Community funding
Community investment in wind energy
Community wind farms
Components of wind turbine
Contents
Cost of wind power
Cost of wind power at Snowtown
Councils and wind farms
Differences in turbines
Electricity generation costs
Electricity generation costs-graph
Energy return on investment
Energy return on investment-graph
Energy return on investment-table
Evolution of wind turbines
Facts and errors
Future of wind power
Generation rate change with time
How big can wind turbines get
How does Australia compare
Images
Installed wind power-table
Installed wind power, World and Oz-graph
Installed wind power, by wind farm-table
Introduction
Landscape Guardians
Leading countries in wind power-table
Level playing field
Libel
Limits to growth
Limits to wind turbine size
Major wind farms in Australia
Major wind farms in Australia-table
Motivation of supporters and objectors
My affiliations
My motivation
Number of homes supplied
Off-shore wind power
Operating wind farms MW generated-graph
Opinion surveys
Payments to land-owners
Power generation of wind farms
Power generation of wind farms-graph
Power generation of wind farms-table
Relative importance
Senate inquiry into rural wind farms
Small wind disadvantaged
Speculation
Steps in building a wind farm
Survey-Bungendore Wind Farm
Survey-CSIRO
Survey-Pacific Hydro
Survey-TRUenergy Mid North SA
Top
Tourism and wind farms
Twenty percent by 2020
TWIMBY
Typical wind turbine-illustration
Who opposes wind power development?
Why not in Wikipedia
Will Australia reach 20% by 2020
Wind farms under construction
Wind farms under construction-table
Wind forecasting
Wind power by states-graph
Wind power capacity in Australia
Wind power in Australia
Wind power in territories
Wind power installed per capita-graph
Wind turbine art
Wind turbines and sailing ships

Key word index...
Abatement 1
Abatement 2
About
Acceptance
Acknowledgements
Advantages
Affiliations
Age
Astroturfing
ALG
Art
Benefits
Biggest
Capital
Change
Chronology
CO₂ 1
CO₂ 2
Components
Community 1
Community 2
Community 3
Contents
Cost 1
Cost 2
Costs 3
Cost 4
Councils
Emissions
EROI
Errors
Generation
Evolution
Facts
Forecasting
Future
Generation
Homes
Images
Introduction
Land-owners
Motivations
Motivation
Opinion
Rates
Sailing ships
Senate
Size 1
Size 2
Speculation
Subsidies
Surveys 1
Survey 2
Survey 3
Survey 4
Tourism
TWIMBY
Territories
Top

General index
Top

Wind farm index

References to 'Wind Farm' (capitalised) are here, references to 'wind farm' and 'wind farms' (capitalised or not) are in the general index on the home page.

Adjungbilly Wind Farm
Albany Wind Farm
Alinta Wind Farm
Allendale Wind Farm
Ararat Wind Farm
Archer Point Wind Farm
Ardrossan Wind Farm
Arriga Wind Farm
Augusta Wind Farm
Badgingarra Wind Farm
Bald Hills Wind Farm
Bango Wind Farm
Bannister Wind Farm
Barn Hill Wind Farm
Baynton Wind Farm
Ben Lomond Wind Farm
Ben More Wind Farm
Berridale Wind Farm
Berrimal Wind Farm
Berrybank Wind Farm
Birrema Wind Farm
Black Rock Community Wind Farm
Black Springs Wind Farm
Blayney Wind Farm
Bluff Point Wind Farm
Bluff Range Wind Farm
Boco Rock Wind Farm
Bodangora Wind Farm
Bowen Wind Farm
Bremer Bay Wind Farm
Broken Hill Wind Farm
Brown Hill Range Wind Farm
Bungendore Wind Farm
Bungulla Wind Farm
Canunda Wind Farm
Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm
Cape Nelson Wind Farm
Cape Sir William Grant Wind Farm
Capital 2 Wind Farm
Capital Wind Farm
Carcoar Wind Farm
Carmodys Hill Wind Farm
Carnarvon Wind Farm
Carrajung and Blackwarry Wind Farm
Carrolls Ridge Wind Farm
Cathedral Rocks Wind Farm
Cattle Hill Wind Farm
Ceres Project
Challicum Hills Wind Farm
Chepstowe Wind Farm
Cherry Tree Wind Farm
Clements Gap Wind Farm
Clifton Wind Farm
Coconut Island Wind Farm
Cocos Island Wind Farm
Codrington Wind Farm
Collaby Hill Wind Farm
Collector Wind Farm
Collgar Wind Farm
Conroys Gap Wind Farm
Coober Pedy wind turbine
Cooktown Wind Farm
Coopers Gap Wind Farm
Coowonga Wind Farm
Coppabella Hills Wind Farm
Coral Bay Wind Farm
Crediton Wind Farm
Crookwell 2 Wind Farm
Crookwell 3 Wind Farm
Crookwell Wind Farm
Crowlands Wind Farm
Crows Nest Wind Farm
Crudine Ridge Wind Farm
Crystal Brook Wind Farm
Cullerin Range Wind Farm
Dalby Wind Farm
Dandaragan Wind Farm
Darlington Wind Farm
Dean Wind Farm
Deepwater Wind Farm
Denham Wind Farm
Denmark Wind Farm
Devon North Wind Farm
Discovery Bay Wind Farm
Dollar Wind Farm
Drysdale Wind Farm
Eden Wind Farm
Elliston Stage 1 Wind Farm
Elliston Stage 2 Wind Farm
Emu Downs Wind Farm
Evandale-Goulburn Wind Farm
Exmoor Wind Farm
Flat Rocks Wind Farm
Flinders Island Wind Farm
Flyers Creek Wind Farm
Forsayth Wind Farm
Fremantle Wind Farm
Glen Innes Wind Farm
Glenlofty Wind Farm
Glenthompson Wind Farm
Golspie Wind Farm
Goulburn District Wind Farm
Grasmere Wind Farm
Green Point Wind Farm
Gullen Range Wind Farm
Gulnare Wind Farm
Gunning Wind Farm
Gurrundah Wind Farm
Hallett Hill Wind Farm
Hampton Park Wind Farm
Hargraves Wind Farm
Hawkesdale Wind Farm
Hepburn Wind Farm
High Road Wind Farm
Hopetoun Wind Farm
Hornsdale Wind Farm
Hughenden Wind Farm
Huxley Hill Wind Farm
Inverleigh Wind Farm
Kalbarri Wind Farm
Kemmis Hill Wind Farm
Kennedy Wind Farm
Keyneton Wind Farm
King Island Wind Farm
Kongorong Wind Farm
Kooragang Wind Farm
Korumburra Wind Farm
Kulpara Wind Farm
Kyoto Energy Park Wind Farm
Lake Bonney Stage 1 Wind Farm
Lake Bonney Stage 2 Wind Farm
Lake Bonney Stage 3 Wind Farm
Lake George Wind Farm
Lake Gillear Wind Farm
Lake Hamilton-Sheringa Wind Farm
Lal Lal Wind Farm
Leonards Hill Wind Farm
Lerida Wind Farm
Lexton Wind Farm
Lincoln Gap Wind Farm
Liverpool Range Wind Farm
Logans Beach Wind Farm
Lord Howe Island Wind Farm
Low Head Wind Farm
Macarthur Wind Farm
Marcus Hill Wind Farm
Mareeba Wind Farm
Marilba Hills Wind Farm
Merredin Wind Farm
Milyeannup Wind Farm
Molonglo Wind Farm
Moonies Hill Wind Farm
Moorabool Wind Farm
Mortlake Wind Farm
Mortons Lane Wind Farm
Mount Alexander Wind Farm
Mount Barker Wind Farm
Mount Benson Wind Farm
Mount Bryan Wind Farm
Mount Emerald Wind Farm
Mount Gellibrand Wind Farm
Mount Hill Wind Farm
Mount Mercer Wind Farm
Mount Millar Wind Farm
Mount Spring Wind Farm
Mumbida Wind Farm
Murrurundi Wind Farm
Musselroe Wind Farm
Myponga-Sellicks Hill Wind Farm
Naroghid Wind Farm
New England Wind Farm
Newfield Wind Farm
Nilgen Wind Farm
Nine Mile Beach Wind Farm
Nirranda South Wind Farm
Nirranda Wind Farm
North Brown Hill Wind Farm
North Stradbroke Island Wind Farm
Oaklands Hill Wind Farm
Orange Wind Farm
Orford Wind Farm
Paling Yards Wind Farm
Penshurst Wind Farm
Phillips River Wind Farm
Point Lonsdale Wind Farm
Port Augusta Wind Farm
Port Kembla Wind Farm
Purnim Wind Farm
Pykes Hill Wind Farm
Pyrenees Wind Farm
Robe Wind Farm
Robertstown Wind Farm
Robbins Island Wind Farm
Rock Road Wind Farm
Rosedale Wind Farm
Rottnest Island Wind Farm
Rugby Wind Farm
Ryan Corner Wind Farm
Rye Park Wind Farm
Salmon Beach Wind Farm
Salt Creek Wind Farm
Sapphire Wind Farm
Scienceworks Wind Farm
Shannons Flat Wind Farm
Sheoak Flat Wind Farm
Sheringa Beach Wind Farm
Sidonia Hills Wind Farm
Silverton Wind Farm
Sisters Wind Farm
Skillogalee Wind Farm
Smeaton Wind Farm
Snowtown Wind Farm
Snowy Plains Wind Farm
Southern Highlands Wind Farm
Spotswood Wind Farm
Spring Hill Wind Farm
St Clair Wind Farm
Starfish Hill Wind Farm
Stockyard Hill Wind Farm
Stony Gap Wind Farm
Studland Bay Wind Farm
Taralga Wind Farm
Tarrone Wind Farm
TasWind Wind Farm
Ten Mile Lagoon Wind Farm
Thompson Beach Wind Farm
Thursday Island Wind Farm
Tolga Wind Farm
Toora Wind Farm
Troubridge Point Wind Farm
Tuki Wind Farm
Twofold Bay Wind Farm
Uley Wind Farm
Uungula Wind Farm
Vincent North Wind Farm
Waddi Wind Farm
Waitpinga Wind Farm
Walkaway 2 Wind Farm
Walkaway Wind Farm
Walwa Wind Farm
Waterloo Wind Farm
Wattle Point Stage 2 Wind Farm
Wattle Point Wind Farm
Waubra North Wind Farm
Waubra Wind Farm
Welshpool Wind Farm
Weymouth Hill Wind Farm
White Rock Wind Farm (NSW)
White Rock Wind Farm (Tas.)
Willatook Wind Farm
Williams Wind Farm
Willogoleche Hill Wind Farm
Winchelsea Wind Farm
Windy Hill Wind Farm
Woakwine Range Wind Farm
Wonthaggi Wind Farm
Woodhouse Wind Farm
Woodlawn Wind Farm
Woolnorth Wind Farm
Woolsthorpe Wind Farm
Woorndoo Wind Farm
Worlds End Wind Farm
Yaloak South Wind Farm
Yaloak Wind Farm
Yambuk Wind Farm
Yandin Wind Farm
Yarram Wind Farm
Yass Valley Wind Farm

Home
Top

See also...

Pages on wind farms in each state...
New South Wales
Queensland
South Australia
Tasmania
Victoria
Western Australia

Wind farm photo pages...
Canunda/Lake Bonney
Hallett
Mount Millar
Snowtown
Starfish Hill
Victoria
Wattle Point

Solar power in Australia

Sustainable energy in Australia

The index on the left is generated by a computer search for a class of hypertext references to 'wind farm'; references to 'wind farms' and 'wind farm ' (note the final space character) are excluded from this index and are listed in the Australia Master Index.

The number of entries does not give an indication of the number of (proposed and operating) wind farms in Australia because several farms have two names, both of which are listed in the index.

Home
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Total installed wind power All figures are megawatts (MW); totals are for the end of each year
State/Year	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
NSW	17	17	17	17	17	17	187	187	187	276	276
Qld.	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12
SA	0	35	35	388	388	388	742	909	1020	1073	1073
Tas.	0	0	0	0	0	140	140	140	140	140	140
Vic.	39	92	92	104	104	104	104	428	428	434	521
WA	24	27	27	29	200	201	202	202	202	541	555
Australia Total	92	183	183	549	720	861	1217	1879	1990	2476	2576

Wind power pages, states...

Other wind pages...

Wind farm photo pages...

More relating to wind power...

Wind power opposition

Liberal's war on wind power...

Main sections

Reference

Ancillary

Graphs

Tables

Using these pages: some hints

Updates

Wind power potential

Where are we compared with the rest of the world?

Odd situation in early 2013

Speculation: threat to fossil fuel industry

Speculation: The fossil fuel industry funds climate change denial – why not also a dis-information campaign against wind power?

Speculation: anti-wind power movement

SKM report, Wind Farm Investment, Employment and Carbon Abatement in Australia

Wind farms that do have something for tourists beyond just views of the turbines from nearby roads

Turbine blade materials

Wind Farms Guide to steps and timelines

Major wind farms in Australia: greater than 100 MW

No generation data from WA

Wind farm capacity factors in Australia (Those farms listed by the AEMO)

Wind farm power generation in Australia (Those farms listed by the AEMO)

Comment by Karina Lindvig of the European Wind Energy Association

The southern hemisphere

Australia's target of 20% renewable power by the year 2020

Old sustainable energy

EROI x Scale for fossil and renewable energy sources

Cost per megawatt-hour

Cost of power from Hallett #1, based on SKM report

Cost of power from some other wind farms, using a relationship stated in an EWEA report

Marginal cost of wind power

Wind energy cutting electricity costs

Costs of various forms of power from a US Congressional report

Cost of solar PV declining

True cost of coal

Compared to nuclear

Alphabetical listing of wind farms and the associated community funding

Verve Energy, WA

Meridian

Transfield

Compulsory funding?

Land lease payments in the USA

Photo credits

Towers

Rotation

Downwind, upwind

Rotating blades or blade-tips

Gear-box or not

Wind speeds

Construction

Footings

Order of assembly

TWIMBY

Operating or under construction:

Proposed:

Community owned wind farm, or not?

Clean Energy Council, December 2011

Bungendore, and others

Distance from turbines

Why the apparently differing results between the QDos and DPI surveys?

Council income and wind farms

Motivation and attitude

Willingness to lie

Age: an observation

Organisations funded by the multinational oil corporation Exxon

Using these pages: some hints

The greater good?

What relative importance is placed on aspects of wind power on these pages?

General index to this page: Wind power in Australia

Wind Farms
Guide to steps and timelines

Wind farm capacity factors in Australia
(Those farms listed by the AEMO)

Wind farm power generation in Australia
(Those farms listed by the AEMO)