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Despite the turbines being billed as "cost-effective" by Premier Mike Rann when he posed with one on his city office tower, the independent assessment by consultants, Sustainable Focus, shows the initial five machines would lose taxpayers around $80,000 on total.
The Department of Premier and Cabinet paid the English consultants to go to Scotland to assess the machines. They reported: "A project to install renewable devices swift turbines cannot currently be considered economically viable in its own right".
Because of that, the decision to proceed with a project would hinge on marketing benefits and the possibility they could be manufactured in SA.
Greens MLC Mark Parnell used Freedom of Information to find out if any machines had been generating electricity. Documents revealed an unspecified amount of electricity generated by only one machine, on Wakefield House.
"If the Government is not prepared to release the results of this demonstration project then we can only assume that the only wind energy that was generated was hot air," Mr Parnell said.
"The State Government is ideally placed to road test new technology and provide free independent advice to all. That would be a greater contribution to the greenhouse debate here in SA than the waffle that usually emerges."
A $331,000 extension of the mini-wind turbine project was put on hold late last year.
A spokesman for Mr Rann said the report also found the machines were "well suited" to testing, were "robust and well engineered" and installation price would fall.
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