A decision to go ahead with an $150 million wind farm near Glen Innes has prompted Tenterfield Shire Council to promise it will do everything it can to consult with the community before any similar industry is approved in Tenterfield. The Glen Innes announcement has sparked criticism the NSW Government has ignored community concerns.

Commissioners considering an extension to the Te Rere Hau wind farm have requested more information about changes to the Tararua District Plan. ...The hearing adjourned a week ago. The council released decisions on submissions to the proposed district plan earlier this month.

Small wind farm developer New Zealand Windfarms intends to install the turbines of Windflow Technology on an extension to its Manawatu wind farm despite their dispute over whether they are "fit for purpose". NZ Windfarms was at a resource consent hearing in Palmerston North last week, seeking to install 56 Windflow 0.5 megawatt two-bladed turbines on an extension to its Te Rere Hau wind farm in Manawatu.

The Altamont is the world's oldest wind farm with some 5,000 power-generating turbines covering 50 square miles on the Alameda County border. While generating good green power for the state, it has a bad reputation for killing birds. The wind turbines on the gusty Altamont Pass were installed after the energy crisis in the 1970s. Today, the world's oldest wind farm powers an average of 100,000 homes with clean green energy. But environmentalists say it comes at a steep price.

Project Hayes was a 630 MW windfarm proposed for an upland plateau in Central Otago in the South Island of New Zealand. An appeal to the Environment Court has resulted in a judgement revoking the consent ...The 350 page judgement was delivered after nine months of deliberation by the Court. The judgement acknowledged the outstanding value of the landscape and loss of this value if the windfarm was built. The other major component of the decision revolved around the magnitude of the economic benefit to people and communities from building this windfarm compared to alternatives. The court was very critical of the lack of economic analysis.

The spectrum of opinions about Acciona Energy's 96-turbine wind farm planned for sites south and east of Mortlake bubbled to the surface yesterday at a community information day. Landholders who had been approached by the Spanish-based firm to host the turbines mingled with vehement critics adamant the 130-metre-high towers would destroy the landscape.

The Environment Court's rejection of the $2 billion Project Hayes wind farm needs to be tested in the High Court, says former Meridian chief executive Keith Turner. Dr Turner is disappointed the Environment Court last Friday denied a consent for Meridian's proposed wind farm because of concern about its impact on Central Otago's landscape. He said the area had been called "a hellhole" by locals because it was so windy and barren.

A proposal to build the first wind farm in Western Washington may stall, and may even be doomed, because of concern that turbine blades would kill members of an endangered bird species, a state lawmaker says. "I'm just not feeling real confident that this is going to grab hold and move forward very fast," Rep. Dean Takko, D-Longview, said last week. "There are key players who aren't very supportive, and I think it's going to hold this up. Is it going to kill it? I don't know."

New research shows developers cannot count on "the silent majority" as necessarily supporting a project. While there was a perception that only "stroppy naysayers" put in submissions on resource consent applications and the silent majority was probably in favour, a University of Otago study into wind farm developments showed that was not true, Dr Janet Stephenson said last week. Instead, non-submitters were equally likely to oppose or support a proposal.

Wind farm developers trying to get consent for schemes are frustrated by a constant "raising of the bar"and the Environment Court decision against Project Hayes last week contains more worrying elements, a national wind energy group says. New Zealand Wind Energy Association chief executive Fraser Clark was disappointed with the decision and said it would hinder the development of other renewable energy schemes.

Bill Evans wants to make it clear he's not against wind turbines. "I'm not anti-wind. I'm a consultant who people call from both sides when there's a concern about the impact on migrating birds," he said. Evans, 50, is an Ithaca-based ornithologist who has studied bird migration in North America for more than 25 years. He helped start the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's research into avian night flight calls in the mid-1990s and in 1998 founded the non-profit group Old Bird Inc.

The Environment Court's decision to decline Meridian Energy's controversial Project Hayes wind farm on the Lammermoor Range could spell the end of large-scale electricity generation development in Central Otago, Mayor Malcolm Macpherson said yesterday. While he had not seen the 350 page decision, he assumed the main reason for declining consent was the special landscapes. "And if that's the case, it might set one of the most important precedents for Central Otago, Otago, and New Zealand.

It was always going to be one of the biggest things to hit Otago, whether you were for Project Hayes or against it. So it was no surprise it took two hearings to reach a decision on whether Meridian Energy could build its $2 billion wind farm on the Lammermoor Range. Two thousand pages of evidence were presented at the first hearing in Alexandra, held over 20 days from May to July 2007, with approval announced on October 31, 2007. But those opposed to the 176-turbine proposal appealed, saying they wanted a second shot at protecting precious Central Otago hinterland.

Jubilant opponents of the wind farm have hailed the decision as a victory for the "small guys". Appellant John Douglas said it showed what could happen when community groups stood up for what they believed in. "It's also a slap in the face to show companies they have to respect what's in the district plan and the criteria in the Resource Management Act."

"It was an inappropriate scheme in an inappropriate place and I always felt that the bench would recognise that." That was Project Hayes appellant Grahame Sydney's reaction yesterday to the Environment Court's decision to uphold an appeal against Meridian Energy's proposed $2 billion wind farm on the Lammermoor Range in Central Otago. In a 350-page decision released to parties yesterday, the court refused consents for Project Hayes.

State-owned Meridian Energy's $2 billion Project Hayes wind farm proposal has been rejected in the Environment Court, dealing a savage blow to the wind power sector. The parties were handed a 350- page decision yesterday, which upheld the appeal against an earlier consent from local councils for the project. Environmental groups are claiming a "comprehensive victory" against the Central Otago project. ...An electricity industry source said the Environment Court "slammed Meridian".

A collection of humble plants clinging to 600 million-year-old rocks on a distant mountain range and a small dragon given to promiscuous sex under a hot sun have forced planners to redraw the map for the southern hemisphere's biggest wind farm. The discovery that spinifex - normally an inhabitant of the red dirt plains below - is living on sediment probably deposited in the last Ice Age and has red mallee and gum coolibah trees for neighbours is so strange and rare that the Silverton wind farm designers have moved 153 turbines from some of the windiest ridges.

An engineering lecturer given the task of monitoring noise levels around the Waubra Wind Farm says there needs to be a thorough independent investigation by the State Government. University of Ballarat engineering lecturer Graeme Hood has spent time at Waubra monitoring sound levels in the area to determine the nature of sound emitted by the wind farm. Mr. Hood commenced the research in September in response to complaints from a number of residents.

The Environment Court has upheld an appeal against Meridian Energy's proposed $2 billion 176-turbine Project Hayes wind farm. The decision represents a startling "David and Goliath'' victory for the conservation groups who fought to preserve the landscape in a remote part of Central Otago. Consents for the project were declined in a mammoth 350-page ruling by the Court, published today.