Submitters on the Mt Stuart wind farm proposal raised concerns about the project at a meeting on Saturday. Central Otago company Pioneer Generation bought the Mt Stuart project, near Milton, from original developer NZ Windfarms Ltd earlier this year.

Police were yesterday called in to shut down the most violent protest in Energy and Resources Minister Peter Batchelor's career. Mr Batchelor's leg was deliberately slammed in his car's door as he attempted to flee an angry mob, protesting at a community forum in Colac against wind farms. The minister last night told The Standard he was shaken by the violence but still willing to deal with the protesters' concerns.

The south-west's prosperous green energy future is under a cloud with fears that half the wind farms planned for the region won't be built. A rift between Powercor and the wind farm companies over supplying power to the grid is threatening to derail billions of dollars worth of projects. The wind farm companies are angry that Powercor wants them to foot the bill for the building of electricity sub-stations adjacent to the wind farms before transferring them over to become Powercor assets.

The Mt Maungatua wind farm development has been abandoned. The founding company, Windpower Maungatua, has wound up the 50-turbine 25MW project because of its inability to find a new financial backer and the difficulties it faced in getting resource consent. ...the decision came after detailed investigations revealed several aspects of the project - including the fact there were areas of "regionally significant flora" near the proposed site and concerns from the local runanga.

Protesters will greet Corangamite MP Darren Cheeseman's wind farm forum in Colac today with angry questions about the health affects of turbines. Mt Pollock-based anti-wind farm campaigner Kathy Russell said residents had a range of fears that were not being addressed by the government. Ms Russell said the group had made contact with people who are claiming health affects from the low frequency noises from wind farms at Waubra.

The cost of coming up against corporate giant Mighty River Power is too high for ratepayers and it's time to pull back. The public will be left to fight its own battles after the Palmerston North City Council decided last night to reduce legal representation at the hearing to decide whether a wind farm on Turitea Reserve and adjoining private land should be built. Council has already forked out $460,000 of the $475,000 budgeted for the hearing and if a full legal team had stayed until the end, the bill to ratepayers would have been more than $700,000.

Electricity giant Meridian Energy has spent more than $7.9 million trying to secure permission to build its 176-turbine Project Hayes wind farm in Central Otago, including more than $1.8 million fighting objectors. Figures released to The Southland Times under the Official Information Act this week - six months after first requested - show the State-owned power company has so far spent $7,924,287.62.

A group fighting a wind farm development at Glenthompson, near the Grampians, is worried that a state parliamentary report will award greater power to developers. ...Judy Vanrenen from the Grampians Glenthompson Landscape Guardians group says it wants independent consultants to investigate proposed developments.

A controversial wind farm on the city's southern fringe will finally be built seven years after it first received special development approval. Its developers predict the Myponga-Sellicks Hill wind farm will herald a rush of green power projects across the state following a massive jump this week in the Federal Government's Renewable Energy Target scheme - from its present 2 per cent to 20 per cent of national energy use by 2020.

Three months ago the first of 128 turbines started turning and almost instantly Mr Dean became sick. He started waking with headaches, initially dull but, over time, sharp and debilitating. "I was waking up two days in a row with headaches, I'd have to take Panadol but they'd be gone by dinner time," he said. "When the wind is blowing north I got a thumping headache, like someone belted me over the head with a plank of wood.

Wind farms are here and they're here to stay, so all the naysayers should just get used to it and stop being "irrational", a district landowner believes. Codrington farmer and quarry operator Joe Crowe has scoffed at opponents' claims the 130-metre-high wind turbines will become unviable, be turned off and left to rust to pieces.

Domestic power majors Suzlon Energy and Tata Power, which have renewable energy projects in Australia, will benefit as that country is implementing a law to ensure 20 per cent of the country's electricity comes from renewable sources by 2020. Sources said the expanded Renewable Energy Target (RET) Bill will be enacted as a law by the Australian Parliament in a few days and will come into force by September 2009.

Traditional owners have signed an agreement with US company National Power to build a wind farm south of Cooktown on Cape York in far north Queensland. The project at Archer Point will produce 120 megawatts of electricity per year. ..."This project is a first in Australia - a wind energy development project on Aboriginal land, with an agreement that ensures Indigenous training and employment opportunities during all phases of the project," he said.

A North Otago community-financed company owning a wind farm generating electricity on the Kakanui Mountains is the vision behind Waitaki Wind, which could start monitoring two sites within a month. ...Yesterday, Mr McLay and Dr Turner, Waitaki Wind's sole shareholders and directors, outlined more details after reaching agreement with two landowners on the Kakanui Mountains to install wind-monitoring towers and - if the scheme proves viable - construct and operate a wind farm.

Hearings on how Porirua City Council will manage proposed wind farms have been delayed again. A PCC subcommittee heard submissions for two weeks in March and April with particular emphasis on the proposed 50-turbine Puketiro development above Pauatahanui. The hearings were adjourned after the committee asked for evidence on the health effects of vibration and low-frequency noise to be investigated.

Palmerston North Mayor Jono Naylor says city councillors were in the dark about the scale of the proposed Turitea Wind Farm when they made it possible for the project to get off the ground. Councillors were familiar with Mighty River Power's plans in the Turitea Reserve, but had only a vague idea of what the company envisaged on nearby private land, Mr Naylor said yesterday.

The developer of a planned wind farm near Tokomaru is nervously awaiting the outcome of the Turitea Wind Farm hearing to see if there will be any impact on its own proposal. Horowhenua Energy director Alistair Wilson said his company planned a farm of 30 to 40 turbines, but was yet to apply for a resource consent. "We will be interested to see how Turitea deals with the cumulative effects issue," he said.

The builders of the Puketiro wind farm no longer plan to build an access road through Battle Hill Farm Forest Park, but the wind farm's opponents have greeted the news with cynicism and say wider issues are still being ignored. ...Nicky Chapman from Pauatahanui Futures Inc ...insists the "face and shape" of Pauatahanui village and Paekakariki Hill Rd will be substantially altered, basically converting the latter into a "major road". She was unimpressed with RES' press statement, describing it as "erroneous, fatuous nonsense".

Plans to scale back the proposed Puketiro wind farm near Porirua have been cautiously welcomed by a residents' group which has warned that the latest backdown is just another "sidestep" in a fight against the turbines. British company RES New Zealand has revealed that the company no longer plans to build the main access road for the construction site of the project through Battle Hill Regional Park, near Pauatahanui.

The cost of renewable energy will rise significantly tomorrow with WA customers paying nearly twice what they paid six months ago. Government-run energy retailer Synergy has increased the price of every green power option they provide, outraging environmental groups and users of renewable energy. The move comes just weeks after Murdoch University energy economist Adam McHugh warned that if the state continued to favour "dirty" industry over renewable projects, consumers would pay.