News from wind energy development 'Down Under'

A Spanish based wind farm company is planning to erect turbines that could be seen from the Great Ocean Road in Australia. EHN's Australian division has set up a wind monitoring mast on a ridge near Newfield, less than 10 kilometres from the world-famous tourist route, to assess the viability of such a project. But ENH (Oceania) managing director Heinz Dahl said a wind farm would not go ahead, if the community did not explicitly want it. "ENH holds very highly in its philosophy the environmental factors in wind farm development and the attitude of the community," Mr Dahl said. A wind-monitoring tower had been put in place in the past couple of days to measure wind resources in the area and would remain there for 18 to 36 months. A community liaison process would begin "in the next week or so" to let people know what was going on, Mr Dahl said.

"We want to run an open and transparent process. We want to build a wind farm here and we want to tell people this is where we are at this stage." He described the company as "the world's largest wind farm developer", responsible for 2500 megawatts of wind-generated power throughout Europe. ENH began operations in Australia about 16 months ago and is also reaching into the British Isles and Asia.
Mr Dahl said construction had begun recently on the group's first Australian wind farm. He confirmed it was being built in South Australia but said the location would not be announced until later this month. Wind monitor masts have also been erected by ENH in central Victoria. Corangamite Shire manager of planning and building services Neil Haydon said ENH did not need to notify the shire in order to set up a wind-monitoring tower but had done so as a courtesy. He said he did not want to comment on the possibility of a wind farm being set up so close to the Great Ocean Road. "It will be at least 12 months before they make any sort of decision, so it's all highly speculative at this stage," Mr Haydon said