Media release – Ark Energy, 30 July 2024
Wind farm for Tasmania’s Central Highlands receives planning approval
Ark Energy today received planning approval from Tasmania’s Central Highlands Council for the St Patricks Plains Wind Farm, proposed for the state’s Central Highlands region.
Donna Bolton, Ark Energy’s General Manager Development for Tasmania, said she was pleased with the decision, and the project would be an important one for the local area and the state.
“The St Patricks Plains Wind Farm site is an excellent location for wind energy generation. Grid connection is on-site, residual environmental impacts can be managed and the wind resource is excellent. This project will deliver much needed new renewable electricity generation to help Tasmania benefit from its world leading wind resource and achieve its renewable energy target, as well as bring a wide range of benefits for the local community and region.
“We thank our host landowners and community members for their ongoing support, and look forward to progressing the project and providing more information to the growing list of local residents, suppliers and business owners excited by the opportunity to be part of this project. To date we have received interest from 40 Tasmanian-based companies and for 50 local properties, to provide services and accommodation during construction,” Ms Bolton said.
Council’s approval in its capacity as Planning Authority follows receipt of the Environment Protection Authority Tasmania’s (EPA) environmental conditions set by the Board of the EPA. The EPA, which also assessed matters protected under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act 1999 (EPBC Act), found “the proposal is capable of being managed in an environmentally acceptable manner”.
The St Patricks Plains Wind Farm had been in development since 2019 and underwent several design iterations, including removal of 20 wind turbines, to avoid environmental impacts, minimise visual impacts and address community concerns.
“We have worked hard to avoid and minimise potential environmental impacts, and the unavoidable environmental impacts are manageable, as shown by the EPA’s report.
“The Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle has been a key species of focus. Proactive avoidance and the latest technology have been combined to achieve the least impact possible to Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles. Major design revisions have been made to avoid areas used by eagles and the Identiflight curtailment system will be installed across the site to minimise collision risk,” Ms Bolton said.
“We will continue to seek to minimise environmental impacts, be a good neighbour to those around the project area, and work diligently to deliver benefits from the project to the local community and wider region.”
Ark Energy will now consider the conditions issued with the permit approval and looks forward to receiving a final decision under the EPBC Act from the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW).
The St Patricks Plains Wind Farm consists of 47 wind turbines and ancillary infrastructure across several properties used mostly for livestock grazing and forestry, and will have a generation capacity of up to 300 megawatts (MW).
This is the first planning approval in Tasmania for Ark Energy and follows approval earlier this year for its 347 MW Bowmans Creek Wind Farm to be located in the NSW Hunter-Central Coast Renewable Energy Zone. Ark Energy has utility-scale renewable electricity generation projects in development in Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland.
Further information on the project is available at www.stpatricksplainswindfarm.com.au
Media release – Nick Duigan, Minister for Energy and Renewables, 30 July 2024
St Patricks Plains Wind Farm approval welcomed
The Tasmanian Government welcomes the Central Highlands Council’s decision to approve the St Patricks Plains Wind Farm development.
Minister for Energy and Renewables, Nick Duigan, said Ark Energy’s 47 turbine project in the central highlands will have a generation capacity of up to 300MW.
“It is good to see progress being made on projects like this. It’s great news and is another big step in growing Tasmanian’s renewable energy resource” Minister Duigan said.
“This project will also make a significant contribution to achieving our Renewable Energy Target, to double energy production by 2040.
“Our State needs new renewable generation to support our growing economy, including expanding existing, and new industries.”
Any renewable energy development is subject to rigorous and independent development, environmental and cultural heritage assessments across the three tiers of Government, with public consultation a critically important part of that process.
“It’s this Government’s expectation that developer’s engage with stakeholders and communities to work proactively with them in developing solutions that minimise any potential impact of developments,” Minister Duigan said.
“It’s good to see this has happened.”
Minister Duigan has now called on the Federal Labor Government to give this project a timely decision under the EPBC Act.
Our 2030 Strong Plan for Tasmania’s Future focuses on increasing our renewable energy generation to help ensure Tasmania continues to have some of the lowest power prices in the nation.
Media release – Keep Tasmania’s Highlands Unique – No Turbine Action Group, 30 July 2024
St Patricks Plains Wind Farm approved by Central Highlands Council
The Keep Tasmania’s Highlands Unique – No Turbine Action Group, formed in opposition to the St Patricks Plains Wind Farm, said today’s decision by the Central Highlands Council to approve the construction of the 47-turbine project is a travesty.
“You can kiss the central highlands goodbye, as we know it” said NTAG chair David Ridley.
The council sat, acting as a Planning Authority. However, three recused themselves from the panel due to perceived conflicts of interest – leaving just six to make the big decision.
The public meeting in Bothwell lasted about an hour and forty minutes, during which 10 speakers were given five minutes each to address the Planning Authority. Only two spoke in favour of the project – a landowner who will host several turbines, and the proponent’s planner.
Not all councillors gave detailed reasons for their decisions – some happy to rely on advice from the EPA and their contracted consultant. Only one dissented, believing that with only two-and-a-half working days to review 1300 pages of information, she could not make an informed decision. The project was approved 5:1.
Greg Oates is an adjoining landowner to the development. He made it clear to the council before they voted that no consideration had been made of existing use or the impact on his property from the development. No-one, including the council’s consultant, had visited him or his wife at their home. “In all, it’s a very selective report that clearly doesn’t include us.“
NTAG chair David Ridley stated to the Planning Authority after the verdict: “With turbines about 400 metres from a boundary, this project is clearly not compliant, and is an appalling decision by council.”
“We will be seeking legal advice on our next steps from our counsel, Dominica Tannock, who represented NTAG at the meeting,” Mr Ridley said.
Ted Mead
August 1, 2024 at 22:05
This dumbo approval is just a travesty of common sense, and yet another environmental disaster. And it’s all a result from Federal governments pussy-footing around with energy policies seemingly forever whilst knowing that most of the country’s coal-fired thermal power stations were due to be de-commissioned by 2035/40.
Now the major parties want to urgently build anything alternative because even the rusted-on fossil-fuel troglodytes can see that the coal days are almost over. Investment into future renewables world-wide is being funded by the private sector which obviously knows how to milk support from any government. If Australia’s future energy production required federal capital to produce it, it would never happen! That’s why electricity prices are high, and why the privatisation of what Australia once owned increased the supply cost to the domestic market.
Poor planning means the Federal government has rushed into rubber-stamping anything alternative regarding renewables, and most likely gas also. Wind is not the answer! It never has been. It’s dinosaur technology because the entire revolving wheel energy process has been around for about two millennia.
Photovoltaics require little maintenance and they are cheap and quick to manufacture, so it’s only a matter of time before battery storage catches up using sodium-ion cells instead of digging up half the planet and creating international conflict over rare-earth minerals.
Given that the Cressy project in the northern Midlands will produce 288 megawatts of renewable energy then that should be considered the model of the future, all at a fraction of the cost of pumped-hydro and the eye-sore ubiquitous transmission lines across the state. The Snowy 2 scheme is rapidly becoming a financial disaster cum boondoggle.
As for wind, we can now expect all the other proposed wind generation plants in Tasmania to get the tick of approval. Probably the only single statement that Tony Abbott and I agree with was when he stated that “Wind turbines are noisy and obnoxious.”
In another decade or so, wind energy will also be heading the way of the dinosaurs!
Here’s hoping!
Thinker
August 5, 2024 at 17:05
Ted says “Wind is not the answer! It never has been. It’s dinosaur technology because the entire revolving wheel energy process has been around for about two millennia.”
Believing that “Wind is not the answer! It never has been” is a ridiculously irrational absurdity, Ted.
Saying you agree with Tony Abbott’s typically ignorant, unintelligent, moronic, goofy tripe that “wind turbines are noisy and obnoxious” reveals a comparable level of intelligence to his, Ted! Oh, dear!
Declaring that you hope that “in another decade or so, wind energy will also be heading the way of the dinosaurs!” is also mindless.
Your nonsensical bias is showing, Ted!
Ted Mead
August 5, 2024 at 18:45
Thinker, do some research regarding wind versus solar!
As far as your comment on Tony Abbot’s intelligence goes, he has proven as a scholar that he has high intelligence. However intelligence doesn’t stand for anything if there is no wisdom supporting it. The reason he condemned wind turbines was to bolster his pro fossil fuel advocacy!
Thinker
August 5, 2024 at 21:12
Ted, I don’t have to do much more research regarding wind versus solar because I’ve explored both for years. For example I can calculate from memory the power available from both because, with the benefit of my Diploma in Science, particularly Physics, I know and understand and can use the relevant equations.
As for Abbott’s intelligence, well here’s a couple of quotes that reveal it …
He (Abbott) has said he accepts that “climate change is real, humanity makes a contribution,” but he told a climate-sceptic thinktank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, that it is “probably doing good; or at least, more good than harm.”
Yes .. “more good than harm.” Don’t ya just love it? Yes, Tony. We know. We citizens just love being grilled alive! Oh yes, and the sheer enjoyment of rampaging floods wrecking everything they touch thrills us with the sheer excitement of it all! Oh, joy! Oh, bliss! Life is just so much better with Climate Change!
Abbott, like most Liberals, has bugger all understanding of technology. Their warped and ungodly mindsets are usually elsewhere – principally making money deviously, participating in the ruthless control of humanity to its great detriment, and the relentless exploitation of people, places and things that has given us the failing conditions of life now increasingly tormenting distressed humanity.
Ted Mead
August 5, 2024 at 22:15
Thinker .. well at least we can agree that Abbott is a nutjob!
Thinker
August 6, 2024 at 08:37
Yes, Ted. A nut job, as you say. I wish he’d been bolted decades ago.
We know that sunshine (technically ‘insolation’) leads the field in the natural supply of free green energy, with wind being second (and both being thoroughly relished by the canny Chinese) wherein we assume, correctly, that if insolation is halved then so is the power from photovoltaic arrays.
With wind however, the picture is far more productive. Because the air passing through the area swept by those three monster blades is volumetric, the relationship between the velocity of that wind, and the power available from it, is (theoretically) cubic.
This means that doubling the wind velocity yields 2 cubed in power, which is eightfold. Crikey! But it gets increasingly awesome from there, for example tripling the velocity (3 cubed) yields 27 times the power! Increasing the wind velocity from 10 metres per second to 40 metres per second (4 cubed) can provide a theoretical 64 fold increase in power output. This is why engineers site turbines at places where wind velocities are reliably high, for example clifftops, hills, ridges, mountains and strong high towers where wind travels faster without being excessively slowed by friction with the ground and what’s on it, for example vegetation.
This is also why children’s jumping castles with flying kiddies on board can almost instantly provide a deadly response to wind gusts.
The same volumetric cubic law applies to ships where a doubling of their velocity requires at least an eightfold increase in power. This is why humanity has never seen big ships go fast. Fuel costs, of course.
I know that the rotating blades of wind turbines can kill birds, and I really regret that. I can also understand why rural dwellers don’t want working turbines anywhere near their homes. I’ll tell you a little secret, one that’s just between you and me. It’s this: I have a feeling that land-based wind turbines will, before long, be phased out in favour of yet-to-be-invented alternatives.
But in the meantime Ted, I deem these big upstanding turbines almost magical in the extraordinary benefits, including life-saving ones, which they provide humanity, and this without charge and with no delivery fees. I invite you to reconsider what you’ve learned here and cease damning wind turbines. These machines are helping us to save the planet, and hence humanity too.
Surely it’s obvious that, in Dutton’s characteristic appalling ignorance about nuclear energy, he remains unaware that we already have far more of it than we can ever use in that the sun is a safe and reliable nuclear furnace, and that Earth’s winds are generated by it.
In the meantime Ted, thanks for opening this conversation.
Ted Mead
August 6, 2024 at 16:35
Thinker … wind still has potential, but I’m not a great advocate for large turbines.
We may eventually see a greater deployment of the vortex oscillating wind generators that are not so imposing or detrimental to the environment. Millions of them could be constructed at the right locations, and this may occur if they can be produced on a cost-effective basis, most likely in supporting micro-grids which would eliminate the need for long distance above-ground transmission lines.
Thinker
August 6, 2024 at 21:11
Ted, has vortex technology been thoroughly proven?
In theory it seems fine, but I feel that the amount of power that these devices can provide for a given volume of wind, compared to that available from conventional wind turbines, will be insignificant.
There is a fine explanatory video here.
So what percentage of Australia’s domestic premises are currently using small wind turbines for anything? Virtually none! I’ve only seen little ones being used to keep the batteries charged inside coastal holiday cabins, or for powering small isolated structures in mountain regions. Windy places, such as Flinders Island, are an ideal site for these.
The aim behind wind power technology is to convert the kinetic energy in moving air into electrical energy. The maximum theoretical power available from conventional wind turbines is 2 raised to the 4th power divided by 3 raised to the 3rd power which 16/27 which is 59%, and I doubt if any other method could do much better, if at all. There’s more quality information here.
Conventional wind turbines utilise the fact that any moving mass of anything has momentum with respect to a reference point. Momentum is defined as mass times velocity. Air has mass (around 1.2 kilograms per cubic metre) and velocity is measured in metres per second. Kinetic energy is defined as 0.5 x m x v squared. There’s more here.
Conventional wind turbines grant us two of Nature’s most astounding exponential benefits. The first is that by doubling the diameter of the blades’ swept area the potential power is quadrupled. The next is the fact that a doubling of wind velocity can provide up to an eightfold power increase. These benefits are also claimed by vortex technology although these vertical devices are not turbines because there are no rotating parts – and consequently nothing to wear out.
The challenge for engineers is to find the most rewarding sites to locate conventional wind turbines, but this sometimes enrages people living there. The potential for local wars, with much swearing and perhaps a few thumpings, can be minimised by providing truly fair compensation.