Wind power links

Other links are in appropriate places scattered through all pages.


As of about 2018 I am not much updating this page


This page contains links to Internet pages concerning wind power, especially as it is developing in Australia.


Created as a separate page 2011/09/11, last edited 2023/07/10
Contact: David K. Clarke – ©

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Australia

Australia – General

  • RenewEconomy a very informative free newsletter on all things renewable; especially concerning Australia.
  • Sustainable Energy Association of Australia. "The aim of the association is to give voice to those with an interest in sustainable energy and to promote the development and adoption of sustainable energy technologies and practices."
  • Carbon emission index (cedex): Pitt and Sherry.
  • Ketan Joshi's informative blog (Some Air) on wind power.
  • The Clean Energy Council
  • Established in late 2005, The Climate Institute "is a non-partisan, independent research organisation that works with community, business and government to drive innovative and effective climate change solutions. We research. We educate. We communicate."
  • CSIRO Wind Energy Research Unit
  • Energy Matters has a free newsletter that is very informative.
  • Wikipedia – Wind Power in Australia, Wikipedia wind power in SA; there are pages on wind power in other Australian states too.
  • Clean SA; South Australian Climate Emergency Network.
  • howlingpixel – Wind power in Australia; a Wikipedia-style treatment.
  • NSW Farmers have released a Guide for farmers (who are considering hosting a wind farm). The document is generally favourable to wind farms, for example under 'Impact of farming activities', this document states "Host landholders generally find that wind farm development does not significantly impact farm operations."
  • EnergyQuest, "EnergyQuest Australia provides timely data, rigorous analysis and sound strategic advice on Australian oil and gas, coal seam gas, LNG and liquid fuels" and also some interesting stuff on wind power.
  • Movie of wind turbine construction at Musselroe, Tasmania.

Articles

Why wind is cutting energy costs, Climate Spectator, Giles Parkinson.

Data

  • Renew Economy's map of large-scale wind farms in Australia.
  • NemWatch provides a live view of the sources of Australia's electrical power, including the proportion generated by black coal, brown coal, gas, wind, large-scale-solar, small-scale-solar, etc.
  • AEMO's Data Dashboard provides a live view of electricity generation on the NEM including the amount of power being transfered between states.
  • Andrew Miskelly has devised a useful tool to plot the daily wind farm electrical output in a graphical form. He used to provide generation data from longer periods in 'csv' format with the option of averaging hourly or monthly, but this site (http://www.landscapeguardians.org.au/data/aemo) is no longer operating.

Health

Most wind turbine health-related links are on my Wind Health page.
Doctors for the Environment Australia are supportive of sustainable energy.

Reports

  • On 2013/11/26 the South Australian EPA reported on a noise study they had done at the Waterloo Wind Farm over a ten-week period from April to June in 2013. In this study the EPA arranged with a number of residents who lived near the wind farm to keep diaries in which they recorded their level of annoyance from the wind farm. A summary of the EPA's findings can be read on elsewhere on these pages.
  • The South Australian Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) produced a report titled "Infrasound levels near windfarms and in other environments" in January 2013.
  • CSIRO report "Acceptance of Rural Windfarms in Australia: a snapshot"; Nina Hall, Peta Ashworth, Hylton Shaw; 2012; found that there is strong community support for wind farms and discussed ways of increasing this further.
  • CSIRO: Societal acceptance of wind farms: Analysis of four common themes across Australian case studies; N. Hall, P. Ashworth, P. Devine-Wright; 2013 – Seven case studies of wind farm development.
  • The Pattern of Complaints about Australian Wind Farms Does Not Match the Establishment and Distribution of Turbines: Support for the Psychogenic, 'Communicated Disease' Hypothesis Plos One
  • Impact of Operational Wind Generation on the National Electricity Market; P. Wild, W.P. Bell, J. Foster; School of Economics, Uni. Qld. Download pdf
    "The stand-out states are South Australia and Victoria which experience [wholesale electricity price] reductions of between 24.9 and 38.9 per cent and 14.5 to 21.6 per cent over the interval 2010-2012."
  • Building Stronger Communities: Wind's growing role in regional Australis; Australian Wind Alliance (pdf).
  • Exploring community acceptance of rural wind farms in Australia; CSIRO.
  • Energy Networks Australia and CSIRO, Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap: Final Report; April 2017.
  • Crystal Brook Energy Park Development Application Response to Verbal Submissions; 10 December 2018. An 82-page document answering a great many questions/objections to a combined wind and solar farm in Mid-North South Australia proposed by French Company Neoen.

Australia – Pro-wind power


Australia – Anti-wind power

 

Groups opposed to wind power in general

  • Australian landscape guardians; ALG are linked to the so-called Australian Environment Foundation (AEF), an off-shoot of the right-wing think tank the pro-nuclear Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). Both the ALG and IPA have climate-change scepticism leanings and links to mining; see here. The ALG seem only to be opposed to wind power, they show absolutely no concern about the far greater damage to the landscape from mining, clear-felling of trees, the damage that will follow from climate change, etc.
  • National Wind Watch seem willing to publish anything that puts wind power in a bad light.
  • Stop These Things claims to give "the truth about wind farms in Australia". Readers should not hope for much truth, but they will find lots of ill-founded rumours, Stop These Things has a special page on rumours.
  • sWINDle; well named, full of lies and aims at deceiving people.
  • The Waubra Foundation claims to be independent, yet is run by anti-wind people and is effectively anti-wind-power.

Groups opposed to specific wind farms

Also see Wind power lies

Australia – Regulation

  • The Australian Energy Market Operator "delivers an array of gas and electricity market, operational, development and planning functions". The AEMO has replaced NEMMCO; see below. The AEMO give Price and demand graphs (prices in $/MW and demand in MW, I believe).
  • The Office of the Renewable Energy Regulator (ORER) was replaced by the Clean Energy Regulator.
  • National Electricity Market Management Co. Ltd. NEMMCO. (NEMMCO has been replaced by AEMO; see above.)

Australia – Government


Australian opinion surveys

  • Climate Institute
     
    The preferred energy mix of Australians
    Preferred energy mix
    Table from the Climate Institute
    Climate of the Nation research.

    "Since 2007, The Climate Institute has produced Climate of the Nation research capturing the nation's pulse on attitudes to climate change. This year's results show an increasing awareness and concern about the impacts of climate change and the country's future energy mix amid the intensifying political debate."

    The table on the right is from that report.

    Unfortunately sloppy writing and editing devalued the report.

  • Clean Energy Council
    The CEC polled 1200 people on their opinions about wind power, the rights of farmers to do what they want on their land and the impact of wind farms on communities. A large majority of respondents (83%) said they felt that concerns about the health impacts of wind turbines will turn out to be nothing to worry about. The report was released in June 2012, showed a general 77% support for wind farms. It is to the credit of the CEC that they have shown the exact wording of the quesionts put to the people.

  • Capital Wind Farm survey, May 2012
    Infigen calculated the approximate population of the area surveyed – Bungendore and Tarago (near the Capital Wind Farm) – 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.
  • Pacific Hydro
    November 2011 surveyed attitudes to wind energy in ten communities across Victoria, NSW and SA where wind farms were operating or proposed. The main result was 83% support, 14% opposed, 3% undecided. Support for wind energy by states: NSW, 77%; SA, 90%; Vic., 84%. The research was done by Qdos, a branch of Interconsult.

  • 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.


Australia – Wind Energy Industry

Also see Wind farm businesses.
  • The Clean Energy Council (which replaced the Australian Wind Energy Association) has information on the Australian wind industry.
  • ElectraNet "Is the principal Transmission Network Service Provider (TNSP) and System Control Centre Operator in South Australia, and we operate in the National Electricity Market."
  • Julian Law of Macquarie Generation has been putting the locations of all Australia's power stations, wind and all the others, on a special page of Google Earth.
  • Building Stronger Communities report by the Australian Wind Alliance of April 2018.



Legal matters

ERD court decision on Palmer Wind Farm appeal; 2018/03/07

Summary of Palmer decision by MWL Ebsworth.



World
General

 
Summary of wind farm and health reviews

World: reports

  • The Conversation: Are public objections to wind farms overblown? 2018/05/02; Jeremy Firestone, University of Delaware; Ben Hoen and Joseph Rand, Berkeley National Laboratory. 1,700 people living near 250 wind farms across 34 states were asked how they felt about being close to turbines. The majority of people within 5 miles and even within half a mile of a wind turbine were positive about it; only 8% within five miles and 25% within half a mile were negative.
  • Health Canada; Exposure to wind turbine noise: Perceptual responses and reported health effects. "Self-reported health effects ... and perceived stress were not related to WTN [wind turbine noise] levels"
  • The journal Environmental Health (impact factor given as 2.45). Health Effects and Wind Turbines: A Review of the Literature, by Loren D Knopper and Christopher A Ollson, 2011/09/14. Suggests no direct causal link between wind turbines and ill-health.
  • University of Connecticut/Berkeley, 2014. A joint report titled Relationship Between Wind Turbines and Residential Property Values in Massachusetts by Carol Atkinson-Palombo of the University of Connecticut and Ben Hoen of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • Benjamin Sovocool, for the peer-reviewed Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences (vol. 9, No. 4) wrote a paper titled The Avian and Wildlife Costs of Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in which he compared bird deaths from these sources of electricity to wind power. His paper was a synthesis of findings from many studies and was dated 2012/06/30. He provided figures of 0.27 avian fatalities from wind power per gigawatt-hour of electricity generated, 0.6/GWh for nuclear power and 9.4/GWh for fossil-fueled power stations.
  • A study of Wind Turbine Setbacks from Residences for the Minnesota Department of Commerce by Katheryn M. B. Haugen
  • Ontario, Canada, Environmental Review Tribunal finding in the Kent Breeze proposed wind farm. "The Environmental Review Tribunal finds that the Appellants have failed to show that Suncor's Kent Breeze Project, as approved, will cause serious harm to human health." (With some qualifications.) The findings document seemed mainly to discuss harm that could be caused by wind turbine noise.
  • Strategic Health Impact Assessment On Wind Energy Development In Oregon. A 106 page review of the literature. No direct links found between wind turbines and health apart from anxiety related matters.
  • The Lancet, Electricity generation and health, Prof Anil Markandya PhD and Paul Wilkinson FRCP. 24 deaths and 225 serious illnesses per TWh of coal-fired electricity.
  • "The influence of negative oriented personality traits on the effects of wind turbine noise"; by Jennifer Taylor, Carol Eastwick, Robin Wilson, Claire Lawrence; published in Science Direct.

How wind turbines might cause health problems

There are a great many claims that are simply unbelievable, I have not listed any of those. The few below seem to have some credibility, but are not sufficient, in themselves, to show any link between wind turbines and illness.
  • Ontario, Canada The Potential Health Impact of Wind Turbines; "The review concludes that while some people living near wind turbines report symptoms such as dizziness, headaches, and sleep disturbance, the scientific evidence available to date does not demonstrate a direct causal link between wind turbine noise and adverse health effects."
  • The journal Noise & Health, 'Evaluating the impace of wind turbine noise on health-related quality of life', Shepherd, McBride, Welch, Dirks and Hill. "Our data suggest that wind farm noise can negatively impact facets of HRQOL [Health Related Quality Of Life]". The journal has a claimed impact factor of 0.739.
  • The US Acoustic Ecology Institute's "Wind Farm Noise 2011: Science and policy overview" is generally well balanced and interesting. The author seems convinced that wind turbines have some physiological health effects, but states "it's extremely rare to hear of health problems from residents more than 1.5 – 2 km from wind turbines". He makes the point that there is much more annoyance from wind farms in rural areas than in suburban areas.

World – The facts of wind power


World – Pro-wind power groups


World – Anti-wind power groups

  • National Wind Watch, A US site that claims to be "Presenting the facts about industrial wind power", but actually is very loose with the truth. I've written something on the lies in NWW.
  • European Platform Against Windfarms, an organisation that brings together the work of many smaller anti-wind power groups. An expose of some of the lies of the EPAW has been written by Ketan Joshi.
  • The Industrial Wind Action Group, an anti-wind power group based in the USA.
  • The Society for Wind Vigilance, "advocates for authoritative guidelines for wind energy development to protect the health and safety of communities like yours".
  • Renewable Energy Foundation claims to be "a registered charity promoting sustainable development for the benefit of the public by means of energy conservation and the use of renewable energy" although their website is made up almost exclusively of criticism of wind energy. The Australian branch of the REF is an off-shoot of the right-wind think tank the Institute of Public Affairs and have links with the misleadingly named Australian Landscape Guardians


Miscellaneous

Advanced Wind Technologies, a supplier of renewable energy equipment based at Kuranda in Queensland.

Coal to gas: the influence of methane leakage; an interesting paper on how methane leakage from the natural gas industry could prove worse for climate change than burning coal (and it doesn't seem to consider the leakage from coal seam gas).

Many photos of wind turbines and wind farms are on Flickr at my wind farm photos set and international wind farm photos.

Homegrown Power: projects and info from TheBackShed – Build your own wind turbine.

The physics of sound: Uni. NSW has a fascinating site with lots of graphics and audio pieces on what sound is all about.

This is an interesting concept. Radio, mobile phones, etc. communications requires towers and communication towers require electricity. Wind turbines require towers and generate electricity. Why not combine the two? Wind-it





 
Updated 2012/03/26

Wind farm businesses – links, contacts and farms.

The 'Information' column gives a guide to the quantity and quality of information provided by the businesses about their wind farms. The more stars the better, a blank box indicates I have not sought information from that company. Australian wind farms tend to change ownership fairly often; my apology for any errors in ownership.

Business name
Links to their sites
InformationEmail Wind farms owned
Comments
Acciona http://www.acciona.com; based in Spain, multinational, mainly renewables
* * * * David.Clarke
@acciona.com.au
Allendale, Berrimal, Cathedral Rocks, Gunning, Mortlake, Newfield, Waubra.
AGL, AGL renewable energy generation. AGL has coal and gas as well as renewable power stations. If inquiries to AGL are to be answered you have to know to whom to direct them. * * * Barn Hill, Bluff Range, Coopers Gap, Crows Nest, Hallett Hill, Macarthur, Mount Bryan, North Brown Hill, Oaklands Hill.
Babcock and Brown Wind Partners (now Infigen Energy),    
Built Environs
No reply to my only inquiry
No informationbe@builtenvirons.com.au Engineering and construction
CBD Energy  mfogarty@cbdenergy.com.au Renewable energy development; Taralga
Energy Infrastructure Investments – Made up of Marubeni Corporation, Osaka Gas and APA Group    Brown Hill Range, North Brown Hill
Energy Infrastructure Trust (a subsidiary of ANZ, like Infrastructure Capital Group). *  Hallett Hill, Wattle Point.
Epuron Australia (Australian owned) is all renewable energy; their new net site is informative. All of Epuron's Australian projects seem to be in NSW. * * * *info@epuron.com.au Birrema, Carrolls Ridge, Eden, Gullen Range, Liverpool Range, Port Kembla, Rye Park, Silverton, White Rock
Business name
Links to their sites
InformationEmail Wind farms owned
Comments
Future Energy http://www.futureenergy.com.au/  info@futureenergy.com.au Chepstowe, Leonard's Hill, Pykes Hill
Gamesa http://www.gamesacorp.com/en/ No informationcontact form unusable Crookwell 2 Wind Farm (with Union Fenosa)
Hatch Wind Power Capabilities (link no longer working) * * *dwhorrall@hatch.com.auWind power engineering services
Horizon Power http://www.horizonpower.com.au/ * *service@
horizonpower.com.au
Esperance?
Hydro Tasmania
 webmaster@
hydro.com.au
Huxley Hill?, Musselroe, Woolnorth
Hydro Tasmania was part owner of Roaring 40s, from whom they have taken over some wind farms.
Business name
Links to their sites
InformationEmail Wind farms owned
Comments
Infigen Energy (previously Babcock and Brown Wind Partners). Infigen is exclusively wind power. * * 
Capital-Bungendore, Glenn Innes, Flyers Creek, Lake Bonney Stage 1, Lake Bonney Stage 2, Lake Bonney Stage 3, Walkaway, Woakwine Range, Woodlawn
Infrastructure Capital Group (a subsidiary of ANZ, like Energy Infrastructure Trust). *  Hallett Hill, Wattle Point.
International Power  corporateaffairs@
ipplc.com.au
Canunda, Willogoleche
Investec Bank (Aus) Ltd  enquiries@
hornsdalewindfarm.com.au
Hornsdale
Keppel Prince Engineering PL. http://www.keppelprince.com.au   Engineering services
Meridian Energy http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/ No information  Mount Millar, Macarthur
Mount Barker Power Co. P.L.  secretary@
mtbarkerpower.com.au
Mount Barker
Business name
Links to their sites
InformationEmail Wind farms owned
Comments
NEMMCO (National Electricity Market Managment Company) http://www.nemmco.com.au/index.html   corporate_affairs@
nemmco.com.au
Market manager
NewEN http://www.newen.com.au/
Site difficult to navigate
* * * *  Mortons Lane, Salt Creek
N.P. Power (or National Power) http://www.nppower.net/
   Lake Bonney Stage 1 Wind Farm
Lake Bonney Stage 2 Wind Farm
Origin (acquired Wind Power PL. on 2009/05/06)    Bald Hills, Crystal Brook, Cullerin Range, Lexton, Snowy Plains, Stockyard Hill, Wonthaggi
Pacific Hydro Limited http://www.pacifichydro.com.au
PH have informative Internet pages on their farms.
* * * * *Crowlands, Cape Bridgewater, Cape Nelson, Cape Sir William Grant, Carmodys Hill, Challicum Hills, Clements Gap, Codrington, Keyneton, Vincent North, Yaloak, Yambuk
Ratch-Australia Corporation took over Transfield's wind power assets   
Baynton, Ben More, Bowen, Collector, Crediton, Emu Downs, High Road, Kongorong, Kulpara, Mount Emerald, Mount Hill, Starfish Hill, Toora, Windy Hill
REpower and Suzlon have combined operations in Australia and New Zealand and are operating as REpower Australia.    Rugby
Business name
Links to their sites
InformationEmail Wind farms owned
Comments
RES, RES-Southern Cross, RES-Australia * * * info-australia@res-ltd.com Ararat, Bungulla, Penshurst, Taralga
Roaring 40s http://www.roaring40s.com.au/
formed in 2005 – joint venture between Hydro Tas. and China Light and Power
* * * Ceased operating April 2011
Stanwell Corporation http://www.stanwell.com/    Stanwell sold all its wind farms to Transfield in late 2007
Suzlon and REpower have combined operations in Australia and New Zealand and are operating as REpower Australia. http://www.suzlon.com * * * *info-au@suzlon.comTurbine manufacturer and wind farm builder. Rugby
Synergy Wind PL. www.synergy-wind.com/projects.htm * * *wind@synergy-wind.com Carrajung and Blackwarry, Devon North/Yarram, Discovery Bay, St Clair
Taurus Energy (Created 2002)  Taken over by Epuron in 2005
TME Australia  Joined with Union Fenosa to form Union Fenosa Wind Australia
Transfield: see Ratch    
Business name
Links to their sites
InformationEmail Wind farms owned
Comments
Trust Power Ltd (NZ) http://www.trustpower.co.nz * * * *enquiries@
trustpower.co.nz
Snowtown
Union Fenosa Wind Australia
(Subsidiary of Spain's Gas Natural Fenosa)
*info@
unionfenosa.com.au
NSW: Crookwell 2, Crookwell 3, Paling Yards, Vic: Berrybank, Darlington, Hawkesdale, Ryan Corner, Tarrone.
Verve Energy have coal, gas, distilate power stations in addition to wind. All Verve's assets are in WA. * * * *inquiries@
verveenergy.com.au
Albany, Alinta, Bremer Bay, Coral Bay, Denham, Esperance, Grasmere, Hopetoun, Kalbarri, Rottnest Island
Vestas http://www.vestas.com   Turbine manufacturer
West Wind * * *Contact on Net site Lal Lal, Moorabool, Mount Mercer
Wind Corporation No information  Black Springs
Wind Energy Solutions * info@
WindEnergySolutions.nl
Port Augusta
Wind Farm Developments PL. http://www.windfarmdevelopments.net * *enquiries@
windfarmdevelopments.net
Crystal Brook, Drysdale, Naroghid, The Sisters
Wind Power PL. was acquired by Origin on 2009/05/06. * * * * *info@wind-power.com.au Bald Hills, Lexton, Wonthaggi
Wind Prospect PL. http://www.windprospect.com.au * *admin@
windprospect.com.au
Does early-stage wind farm development work
Windlab
http://windlab.com/
* * * *  Wind-assessment technologies, identifying wind farm sites, early site development. Collgar, Oaklands Hill.
Windplanner "Windplanner is a do-it-yourself web application for the planning and visualization of wind projects. It shows the visual impact on the environment in 2D, 3D and VR. You can view the project from any angle, in photorealistic images."
World Wind Energy Association WWEA is an international non-profit association embracing the wind sector worldwide, with members in 90 countries. WWEA works for the promotion and worldwide deployment of wind energy technology.





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