Electricity industry commentators say Kiwis are just starting to pay for the cost of big wind farm developments and the lack of generation when the wind stops blowing. ..."First electricity companies need to get a return on their investment in wind, which is going to push prices up. Second, they will claim the risk of wind energy, because it is so intermittent, is so high they will have to raise prices to build back-up generation." Mr. Leyland said wind farms were vulnerable to sitting idle in light winds. "They call wind ‘intermittent', but the best word is unpredictable. There's a blind faith that wind power would provide the electricity that we need," he said.

Of the country's 9900 megawatt capacity, the capacity of installed turbines, including small installations at Gebbies Pass and Southbridge, is 321.8MW. ...With Government encouragement, wind's role is growing. Projects being built in Manawatu and Wellington will add 188MW. A further five consented wind farms could add 312MW. Applications are being considered for nine more projects which will lift the total by 1700MW. ...One of the Upland Landscape Protection Society's most prominent members, Central Otago artist Grahame Sydney, says the possibility the landscape will not be appreciated in the same way by later generations is upsetting and depressing. "The pervasive cloud of threat that hangs over this landscape that I love so much, that so many of us love and think is important ... is very real and it's awfully troubling," he says.

A researcher is looking at outflanking the mounting tide of "nimby" protests over the siting of windfarms by making it possible to moor the turbines out at sea. "Wind turbine progress has been hindered in New Zealand mainly by complaints from residents about noise and the visual impact on outstanding landscapes," said Auckland University engineering researcher Hazim Namik. But offshore windfarms could resolve all of these issues. "The further they can be placed offshore, the better the winds and the less visual and noise impact they have on communities," he said.

Energy Minister David Parker says he does not want the proposed Waverley windfarm being blocked by red tape. Allco Wind Energy's bid for consent to build a 45-turbine farm on the Waverley coast will be heard by the South Taranaki District Council on May 5. Most of 127 submissions made oppose the consent being granted. ...National grid operator Transpower's system operations manager Kieran Devine told the Taranaki Daily News this week that the monitoring project has already disclosed some interesting data: ..."One of the major issues we face is that over the three years 2005-07, we were getting less than 1% of wind farm capacity at peak times in winter.

Moorabool Council will write to the Federal Government supporting a national wind-farm code. The decision came after WestWind Energy submitted a planning application for 40 wind turbines at Yendon and 24 at Elaine. The letter, to Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett, will aim to prevent wind farms being "constructed against the wishes of the community". The council could have little influence over approval for the Yendon/Elaine wind farm.

Romantic notions about wind energy have taken a severe buffeting at the Ngaruawahia hearing into Wel Networks' proposal to build a $200 million wind farm near Te Uku. Over the next few weeks commissioners Michael Savage, John Hudson, David Hill and Graham Ridley will rule on Wel's application for resource consent for 28-turbine wind farm on the Wharauroa Plateau. But regardless of the outcome of their deliberations and perhaps those of the Environment Court further down the track strident opposition to the Te Uku project has already done much to undermine wind power's image as our favoured squeaky clean alternative to fossil fuels.

The centrepiece of the strategy, which was released by the Government late last year, is a target that at least 90 per cent of the country's electricity generation will come from renewable resources, such as wind, hydro and geothermal, by 2025. "These are lofty goals," Dr Turner said. "You can already see resources starting to mobilise toward them. But the biggest challenge will be the government response and how much teeth the Government gives it. It's one thing to say what we should do. It's another thing to give us the tools to enable us to do it." ..."The amount of wind is going to be limited by the cost of things we have to do to the grid. In my honest opinion, everyone is running around saying 'yes, we need a robust grid' and 'yes, we should develop it' but no one has thought it through carefully in terms of what it means and how we are going to get approvals for some of these issues.''

With a mix of pointy-headed science and gratuitous insults, he delivered a 212 hour dissertation on the problems with wind farms, Wel Networks, the Resource Management Act process, and new trends in the energy sector. Earlier Wel Networks had painted him as an unreliable witness who lacked credibility, but Mr Cox scored plenty of hits in concluding the wind farm was "an economic and power supply disaster". "If it had been built a year ago it would not have earned enough in the last year at wholesale power rates to get close to covering its interest payments," he said.

Long standing plans for a major Tasmanian wind farm have been revived, thanks to the increase in Australia's renewable energy target. ..."The Rudd Government's policy was to bring in a 20 per cent renewable energy requirement by 2020" he said.

Victorian Nationals MP Peter Hall is calling on the State Government to amend planning laws to alert property buyers to wind farms. Mr Hall says there have been recent cases of buyers in Gippsland, in the south-east, checking property titles and local planning schemes which have had no mention of nearby wind farms. He says it was only after his constituents bought the property did they discover a 100-turbine wind farm was planned for the adjoining property.

Forests of turbines spinning on distant hills: in these carbon-aware times, the glory of wind farms is being touted as the one-stop solution to all our energy ills. So aggressive has been the rush to build them that a week doesn't seem to go by without a new application for an industrial-scale turbine site going before a local council for consideration under the Resource Management Act (RMA), with a mad green fervour. You'd be forgiven, then, if it escaped your notice that wind power was part of the problem, not the solution, when the Electricity Commission last week announced that we're teetering on the brink of yet another major electricity shortage. ...A wind farm of egregious proportions on environmentally-significant landscapes to a community near you. Whether it's in your best interests is another question entirely.

Mr. Malcolm Barlow, a strong anti-windfarm advocate, has described the proposal put forward by Mr. Chris Durrant, of Grabben Gullen for formation of a Windfarm Association to treat with future developers, as containing "factual errors, dubious assertions and ending in a fairy tale." Mr. Barlow put his counter-submission before Upper Lachlan Shire Council at its last meeting. The factual errors claimed by Mr. Barlow included that the Australian population would double by 2030; that it was unlikely more coal-fired plants would be built; and that the State Government acted in accordance with the majority of NSW voters.

The Government has tagged the Project Hayes wind farm as a project of national significance and will oppose nine of the 11 groups and individuals appealing the decision. Meridian Energy received consent to erect up to 176 wind turbines on the Lammermoor Ranges late last year. Eleven appeals against the decision were received by the closing date in the middle of December. Environment Court case manager Chris Jordan confirmed the Ministry for the Environment has joined the appeals under section 274 of the Resource Management Act (RMA). The Crown had made a whole of-Government submission in favour of the Project Hayes wind farm, co-ordinated by the Ministry for the Environment, he said.

There is a significant risk of power shortages from the Government's aim for 90 per cent renewable power and prices will rise, according to former Electricity Commission chairman Roy Hemmingway. The Government's Energy Strategy, announced in December, will also impose a 10-year ban on building new fossil fuel power stations in an effort to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Hemmingway left the job as Electricity Commission chairman at the end of 2006, at the end of an often turbulent three years. ..."More renewables are necessary if New Zealand is to meet climate change targets. However, in my opinion, the government's policy puts so much emphasis on renewables to the exclusion of other generation sources that the power supply is at risk," Hemmingway said. He warned against an over-reliance on wind power.

But the Government has far greater ambitions to prove New Zealand's green credentials. This month it tabled legislation aimed at pushing the country towards a target of generating 90 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. That compares to 65 per cent in the quarter to September. To achieve that a 10-year moratorium would be placed on the building of new baseload thermal electricity generation ...The proposals have not been universally applauded, with debate about their wisdom and impact, ...It has been suggested the 10-year ban on new fossil fuel power stations could cause electricity prices to jump 30 to 40 per cent in a few years.

Environment Minister Trevor Mallard says he will "call in" Contact Energy's planned Te Mihi geothermal power station near Taupo and Unison Networks' Te Waka windfarm because they are of national significance. Under special Resource Management Act powers the applications can be referred directly to either a board of inquiry or the Environment Court for decisions, instead of the usual process through district and regional councils. ..."The Government's intention to call in the resource consent application for this project under the RMA will streamline the process and avoid unnecessary delays, increasing confidence that the plant could be generating electricity by 2011. "At the end of the day the project will be judged on its merits, like any other resource consent application, but without the potential for lengthy appeals dragging the process out for a number of years," said Mr Baldwin.

Installing renewable energy is economically viable for tourist accommodation despite being considered too expensive and inefficient, according to the first Australian study of renewable energy in tourism accommodation. ...Dr Dalton found 50 percent of tourists were willing to pay at least five percent more to stay at a hotel with renewable energy but the other half, were not willing to pay any more. ...He found most types of renewable energy installations near a hotel were visually acceptable, with the exception of some wind turbines. ..."Wind seems to be a political hotcake that no one really seems willing to address and as a result doesn't seem to be promoted," he said.

BABCOCK & Brown could bring $1 billion worth of new wind energy projects on stream in Australia following the Rudd Government's commitment to having 20 per cent of energy use in the form of renewable energy by 2020. The chief executive of Babcock & Brown Wind Partners, Miles George, said this could involve 500 megawatts of new wind power projects around Australia, where development had been put on hold because of uncertainties about the federal Government's energy policies. "Babcock & Brown has developments in Australia which have effectively been put on hold because of the hiatus in federal government policy over renewable energy," Mr George said inan interview with The Australian. "The company has leased sites all around Australia which are likely to be revisited now there has been a change of government." At the moment, wind power represents only about 1 per cent of Australian energy use.

The moratorium on the building of thermal power stations announced by the Government this week will lead to rotating blackouts. This is the view of Auckland energy consultant, Bryan Leyland, who is also chair of the economic panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition. ..."In all that time, I have never seen anything that is potentially so disastrous for electricity supply and for the economy as the New Zealand Energy Strategy and the Emissions Trading Scheme," said Mr Leyland. "The central focus is climate change and political expediency not strategy and energy. It also demonstrates that electricity supply is now more firmly under government control than it was in the 'bad old days' when the Power Planning Committee issued reports that anyone could understand and that clearly set out the options as well as the arguments for and against them.

"To keep New Zealand's electricity prices as low as possible and to avoid blackouts and shortages, we should have as diverse portfolio of generation as possible. New generation, be it wind, water, geothermal, gas or coal fired, of course should be environmentally sustainable as well as economic. ..."The moratorium is a step back to government being wary that market outcomes may not exactly fit their plan and hence a dose of regulation is needed also.