Green investors can be easy prey for opportunists hoping to turn a quick profit, rather than make a lasting difference. Matthew Kidman, portfolio manager at Wilson Asset Management, which invests heavily in smaller companies, says the clean energy industry has "done itself no favours".

There are fears the spinning blades of a planned wind farm near Wellington could interfere with signals from a nearby aircraft radar, putting planes at risk. The multimillion-dollar Long Gully project south of Brooklyn would have 25 two-bladed turbines, each 30-metres high, and produce a total of 12.5 megawatts enough to power 6000 homes.

Westwind Energy says it can compulsorily acquire land for powerlines to connect Mt Mercer Wind Farm to the grid. The Courier spoke to WestWind general manager Tobias Geiger after concerns were aired by a Navigators landholder, annoyed that contractors had surveyed his paddocks and not approached him.

The imminent decision regarding the $2 billion Project Hayes wind farm could shape energy policy nationally, Central Otago Mayor Malcolm Macpherson said. ...Detractors believe the farm, if built, could have serious consequences for the visual landscape in a remote part of Central Otago. If rejected, energy firms will have to think about the future viability of wind farms on a national scale, he said.

Turbines in the Game Ridge area would fragment forest and cause sediment issues, and the council had "concerns" about 13 other turbine sites because they were in the vicinity of steep slopes and water courses, city lawyer John Maassen said. Approving the proposal without changes would set the environmental bar far too low for other wind farm applications, he said.

Five southern local authorities will be involved in deciding if a large-scale wind farm near Wyndham will go ahead. Wind Prospect CWP (NZ) Ltd, which wants to construct a $400 million wind farm in the area, had hoped to lodge its resource consent application by the end of June, but project manager Shirley Ferguson said that had been delayed.

It will take 26 days over nine weeks, but the fate of Palmerston North's skyline will soon be known. A board of inquiry hearing into the Turitea Wind Farm application begins today at the Travelodge. It is scheduled to finish on September 2. State-owned power company Mighty River Power has applied to build a 122-turbine wind farm along the Tararua Ranges, in and around the Turitea Reserve.

The New South Wales Government has given planning approval for a wind farm at Gullen Range, near Goulburn in the state's south, despite an ongoing case in the Land and Environment Court. The Government has given the $250 million plan the green light after putting in place measures to protect the powerful owl and the wedgetail eagle.

A proposed wind farm in the Kakanui Ranges near Oamaru would be more efficient and lower-cost than a hydro power scheme, an expert witness has told the Environment Court. Meridian Energy is seeking to take water from Lake Waitaki and pass it through a tunnel and power station before discharging the water into the Waitaki River at Stonewall.

The Kakanui Mountains in North Otago are being investigated by a new company for a wind farm to generate electricity. Waitaki Wind, set up recently by former Meridian Energy Ltd chief executive Keith Turner and former Waitaki mayor Alan McLay, is negotiating with landowners on the Kakanui Mountains to get access to start monitoring, according to evidence at the Environment Court yesterday.

The New South Wales Government has given planning approval for a wind farm at Gullen Range, near Goulburn, after putting in place measures to protect the powerful owl and the wedgetail eagle. ...Ms Keneally says the the use of some turbines will have to be restricted when the young owls are learning to fly.

Former Waitaki mayor Alan McLay and former power company chief executive Keith Turner have set up a company to investigate the potential of new wind farms. They are the sole shareholders and directors of Waitaki Wind, registered to look at areas in the central South Island for wind farms.

The announcement follows a recent proposal for a 50-megawatt wind turbine at Shannons Flat near Cooma by Sydney company CBD Energy Limited. The inquiry's chairman, Upper House Greens MP Ian Cohen, says it will look at the best locations for farms and their impact on property values.

South Australia must be careful about becoming too reliant on wind power, the Essential Services Commission has warned. ...By the end of next year capacity would exceed 1000MW - equivalent to nearly a third of peak demand. ...Mr Walsh said while capacity was high, wind farms generally only delivered about a third of that on average over a year and could only be relied on for about 10 per cent of their capacity to meet peak demand.

Trustpower has failed in its bid to have more than $30,000 in costs awarded against a group that dropped an appeal against the company's plans for a big wind farm ...An Environment Court ruling, released yesterday, ruled no costs should be awarded against the Upland Landscape Protection Society which had lodged an appeal against TrustPower's planned $400 million wind farm at Kaiwera Downs, near Gore.

Ambiguous language has left Palmerston North City Council scrambling to meet a tough deadline if it wants Local Government New Zealand to support national guidelines for wind farms. The council had applied to have a remit included on LGNZ's annual meeting agenda, calling for a national policy statement on wind farms.

In a statement to the stock market on Wednesday, Infigen said it had settled on the terms for acquiring Babcock's Australian and New Zealand wind energy projects and its US wind asset management business. "The total consideration for these acquisitions is $23.5 million," Infigen said in a statement.

The company behind a proposal to build a multi-million dollar wind farm on the New South Wales Monaro admits it has been negligent by not consulting the shire council. The Cooma-Monaro Mayor, Vin Good says C-B-D Energy Limited hasn't made contact about its Shannons Flat wind farm project.

The Marlborough Environment Centre has decided against appealing the resource consent granted for a Ward wind farm to the Environment Court, after agreement was reached to reduce the turbine size to two-thirds of its initial height. ..."So our point of view is we will have less landscape effects," Mr Browning said, though he still had concerns over the visual impact of turbines in general.

Energy giants Origin and AGL have been busy beefing up their wind-farm portfolios in recent months in preparation for the upgraded Renewal Energy Target -- should it make its way through parliament. But perhaps the most revealing aspects of presentations both companies made last week was their faith in geothermal energy as a significant source of base-load power in the future.