Construction of Mt Mercer Wind Farm has been delayed, with the Federal Government yet to set its renewable energy targets. Proponents West Wind Energy were to begin construction of the 64-turbine wind farm late last year. But general manager Tobias Geiger said the project had been affected by the uncertainty of what the new renewable energy laws would bring.

Department of Conservation officials are being told to ensure greater transparency occurs within the organisation, after details of a controversial agreement were allegedly kept confidential. A negotiation document between Doc and Meridian Energy on the electricity company's proposed $2 billion Project Hayes wind farm drew criticism of Doc last week when details came to light almost two years after the agreement was made.

Landscape gardener and campaigner Jan Dixon hopes to gather 1000 signatures for a petition which asks the Government to consider halting all building of wind farms until national rules can be set. Mrs Dixon says though the Resource Management Act gives some protections, it only takes into account individual projects and not the effects that multiple developments will have on an area over time.

Wind farm building should halt until New Zealand has national guidelines about wind turbines, says Palmerston North woman Jan Dixon. She's starting a petition to the Government to plead for national guidelines on: * Minimum distances turbines can be from houses * Maximum saturation of an area's skyline * "Iconic" areas where wind turbines shouldn't be built. Until these guidelines are established by the Government, she wants a moratorium on wind farm developments.

Theories of climate change were challenged during an Environment Court appeal hearing for Meridian Energy's proposed $2 billion Project Hayes wind farm yesterday. As a witness for appellant Roch Sullivan, climate scientist Prof Christopher de Freitas was questioned on his evidence, which had been contested in the evidence of other climate witnesses called in the hearing.

Palmerston North City Council will likely oppose some turbines in the Turitea Wind Farm, despite being contractually involved with the power company, city mayor Jono Naylor said. ...The council was contracted to provide reserve land for most of the turbines, and the terms meant it would be unable to comment on those. But it would be free to submit on the turbines planned for private land.

Plans to notify the Turitea wind farm have stalled again following news a call-in decision is imminent. After announcing last month that Mighty River Power's application for the 131-turbine wind farm would be publicly notified, despite still waiting on a ministerial call-in decision, Palmerston North City Council has back-pedalled after news Environment Minister Nick Smith plans to announce his decision in the next week.

The application for the 131-turbine wind farm was lodged on August 14, and the council had expected to publicly notify the application last month. But, the process stalled after MRP applied to the Environment Minister for a ministerial call-in. That would have fast-tracked the application, because the resource consent process would be taken out of council's hands, and instead referred directly to either a board of inquiry or the Environment Court.

The State Government's green credentials are being queried after MPs were told a mini wind turbine rollout has "collapsed". The $331,000 project followed Premier Mike Rann's announcement in 2006 to install turbines on his and four other prominent Adelaide office buildings, as part of a commitment to renewable energy. At the time, Mr Rann said the turbines would be monitored for 12 months, but the Government has told The Advertiser that it does not know how much electricity is being generated from the project.

The plug is set to be pulled on a multimillion-dollar Wellington wind farm proposal because of visual pollution concerns, despite a winter of power cut fears. A report by Greater Wellington regional council recommends a five-year moratorium on wind farm development at Belmont Regional Park, five years after the council called the site a "world-class wind farm opportunity".

The state-owned generation and retailing company is preparing for battle with the Government's Electricity Commission over who pays for a modern inter-island power link, saying the existing arrangement would cost it about $1 billion. A leaked document also shows Meridian would, for purely commercial reasons, prefer not to have the high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) link which includes the Cook Strait cables at all. Meridian is angered by a commission decision that South Island generators alone should pay for the HVDC because it allows them to profit from selling electricity to the North Island.

Analyst Bryan Leyland said New Zealand needed more power generation as "soon as possible" after drought caused this winter's hydro power shortage. The place to build a plant quickest was at Contact's Otahuhu site in Auckland, which already had consent for its existing power station, Mr Leyland said. It could be built within two years. If it chose that option, Contact could buy a 400-megawatt combined cycle power station for about $600 million - much cheaper than a wind farm.

A National-led Cabinet would decide which crucial projects to fast-track under its plans to shake up the Resource Management Act (RMA), party environment spokesman Nick Smith says. National says fixing the act would be one of its priorities if it wins this year's general election. It wants to introduce a two-phase system in which priority consents would have to be processed within nine months. The proposal, announced by party leader John Key and Smith at the weekend, has generated cautious interest.

Four out of five power stations in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, both coal-fired power stations in South Australia and several generators in NSW and Queensland could close down under an emissions trading regime designed to meet even a modest greenhouse reduction target. New modelling for the electricity industry finds that Australia could achieve cuts of 10 or 20 per cent in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared with 2000 levels - but only after a massive upheaval in the energy sector. Even the lower target of a 10 per cent cut would push the price of carbon emissions to levels that would close down 15 per cent of the nation's electricity generating capacity on the east coast and require $33billion in new investment in replacement clean energy generation, such as wind, solar, combined cycle gas turbine and geothermal power.

Greenpower users will be double billed if changes to the new greenhouse gas reporting system are not made, says University of Adelaide climate change Professor Barry Brook. This could cause the GreenPower national accreditation scheme to "implode" when an emissions trading scheme is introduced in 2010. Professor Brook said the almost 750,000 households and businesses using GreenPower nationally would be penalised once an emissions trading scheme was introduced as they would be paying extra to buy power from renewable sources.

The decision by a panel of commissioners released today by Waikato District Council to approve resource consent for the project comes after five years of Wel investigations into wind power generation, and two years of feasibility studies on the Wharauroa Plateau in Te Uku. The decision also comes in a week where the Government's energy policies have been creaking at the joints, with blackout fears escalating and a decision made to reopen a mothballed thermal station in Taranaki but in climatic conditions not conducive to a wind farm. Wel's project team is now engaged in fully understanding the 148-page ruling and 26 pages of conditions, but chief executive Julian Elder welcomed the decision.

During Mr Rudd's visit to Traralgon on Saturday, he raised the issue of alternative energies and its impact on the region's future, while confirming his support for the Latrobe Valley's brown coal industry. "Obviously wind has a strong place... and that's why you will find in the budget we have significant funding allocations not just for research but the deployment of alternative energies as well,'' Mr Rudd said. "Windfarms are important in terms of an alternative energy resource for Australia but it's the location of windfarms which is a local developmental approval challenge. ...The wind turbine debate flared up recently when speculation surfaced that a windfarm could soon be built in the rural district of Carrajung. Rumours about a windfarm gathered momentum when representatives from energy company Synergy Wind were seen conducting wind measurements in the area.

TrustPower's hearing for the 200MW Mahinerangi windfarm concluded in Dunedin last week and now another division of the court is considering the Project Hayes application. Counsel for Meridian Andrew Beatson asked Judge Jon Jackson and commissioners Dr Alex Sutherland, Heather McConarchy and Ken Fletcher that they consider Project Hayes "as if the Mahinerangi proposal doesn't exist''. Several appellants are concerned about the cumulative effects of Project Hayes when combined with effects from other windfarms in the area.

Snowflakes tumbling along the Old Dunstan Road hint at a long winter to come. Here, 700m up on the northern fringes of Central Otago's Lammermoor Ranges, is giant state-owned power company Meridian Energy's latest bid to produce enough electricity to allow South Islanders to enjoy a more secure power supply. Flurrying snow marks out small eddies but there's little real wind up here today on the 200sq km site where Meridian plans to spend $1.5 billion and install as many as 176 wind turbines with the potential to generate up to 630 megawatts (MW) of electricity ...The true extent of Project Hayes, which spreads across five private properties, is difficult to gauge as the windfarm site disappears into the snowy mists. It has been controversial, as all proposals to generate more electricity are these days, attracting the ire of high-profile Central Otago landscape-lovers ...

Contact Energy had asked the national grid operator as far back as 2003 to investigate a power bottleneck, the Environment Court was told yesterday. ...But it was advised by the national grid operator the existing transformer was in reasonable operating condition and there was no need for a new transformer. The power company wants a condition imposed on the resource consents for the Mahinerangi wind farm, with capacity increased at transmission lines at the Roxburgh substation and between Roxburgh and Naseby. Mr Brinsdon said the company was forced to reduce generation at Roxburgh because of line constraints.