Palmerston North is spearheading a push to create national guidelines for wind farms. The city council has gathered the support of nine councils around the country, and will next month ask Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) to put the issue on its agenda.

Australian's biggest wind farm with almost 600 turbines, is to be be built in far western New South Wales. State Government approval has been given for the project at Silverton, near Broken Hill. ...NSW had approved 14 wind farms with a total capacity output of 2486 megawatts since 2005, Mr Rees said.

The 128th turbine has been erected at the Waubra Wind Farm, marking the end of construction. But it will be at least another month before the wind farm is in full swing, with Acciona Energy hoping to have the facility commissioned in late July. Already, more than half of the turbines are operating and delivering electricity back to the grid.

Opponents of Contact Energy's proposed $1 billion-plus wind farm in Waikato are considering legal action to force the power company back before a board looking at the application. Contact won a year's adjournment to its application after deciding it had more work to do.

Origin Energy has submitted its draft planning application for Stockyard Hill Wind Farm, west of Ballarat. The proposal is for a 242-turbine wind farm, with a capital cost of $1.4 billion.

Ewan Carr Upland Landscape Protection Society trustee Ewan Carr hopes the organisation can "rise from the ashes" despite it being placed into liquidation. Mr Carr told the Otago Daily Times he hoped the incorporated society could be taken out of liquidation, depending on the generosity of members. ...Mr Carr said the society had about 250 members.

Hastings will join Palmerston North and Waikato in lobbying for national guidelines on the siting of wind farms. Both Palmerston North and Hastings have come under pressure in recent years from power generators wanting to put large numbers of turbines on hilltops, and both expect more applications.

The board of inquiry considering the proposed 180-turbine Waikato wind farm north of Raglan could take more than a week to decide whether to approve an adjournment to the hearing. Applicants Contact Wind and Contact Energy yesterday sought an adjournment until May 3, 2010, to address increasingly pointed board comments about the practicability of the $1 billion Hauauru ma raki project.

The power company yesterday asked the board of inquiry to postpone the hearing on its planned 180-turbine wind farm near Raglan for at least a year so it can do more research and site work. Contact last August welcomed the Labour Government's decision to use the call-in powers of the Resource Management Act and have the application considered by a board as important in removing "unnecessary delays" for a project of national significance.

Contact Energy is putting the brakes on its planned $1.2 billion wind farm on the Waikato coast. ...The board of inquiry hearing has been under way at the Te Akau Town Hall for two weeks now, but today Contact will seek permission to have the process adjourned for 12 months while it gathers more information.

Opponents of Contact Energy's proposed 180-turbine wind farm on Waikato's west coast have claimed a victory after the electricity firm said it would seek an adjournment of the hearing into the controversial project. Contact will ask for a 12-month adjournment at Monday's board of inquiry proceedings so it can carry out more research, geotechnical assessments and surveying work.

A 128-turbine wind farm has been proposed for an area south of Ballan. The plan by WestWind, the company behind the Lal Lal and Mt Mercer wind farms, directly involves 14 landholders who have signed up to have turbines on their properties. Project developer Phil Burn said WestWind was now endeavoring to speak directly to landholders with properties neighbouring the wind farm.

The Lal Lal Wind Farm in the Moorabool Shire has been given the go-ahead by Planning Minister Justin Madden. ...Moorabool Shire Council mayor Cr Michael Tudball said he hoped the minister had considered concerns held by local residents, including the effect on local flora and fauna, the ability for the turbines to link into existing power grids, flickering, noise and proximity to residential areas.

Businessman Ross Townshend admits there's an element of a "not in my backyard" position in his opposition to a wind farm in the Waikato. His grumpiness about the project extends to calling former Environment Minister Trevor Mallard a duck and Contact Energy, one of our largest energy companies, incompetent. His position on wind farms generally is that they are an expensive form of energy generation getting a green light because of green politics.

State owned enterprises have given $8.4 million to the Department of Conservation over the past decade to settle resource consent issues. ...The largest amount was $7.2 million from Meridian for the Waitaki hydro project, ...DOC head Al Morrison said the money was used to mitigate environment effects and was preferable to costly court battles.

TrustPower has applied to the High Court to put an Otago protest group into liquidation because it has failed to pay court-awarded costs. The High Court ordered the Upland Landscape Protection Society Incorporated to pay $49,788.21 divided among five defendants in December after it failed to overturn resource consents for two wind farms.

Adelaide's building-mounted wind turbines never were "economically viable" and were clustered in inefficient city locations for "marketing impact" ...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.

Makara locals are furious after signs protesting against Meridian Energy's West Wind project were mysteriously removed apparently in case they were spotted by Prime Minister John Key. "It's terrible. This is New Zealand, not Zimbabwe," Makara farmer Graeme Hook said. Police are investigating and have spoken to a Meridian subcontractor.

Babcock & Brown Wind Partners Group (BBW) shareholders have approved the company's name change, finalising its separation from its troubled parent. At an extraordinary general meeting on Wednesday, shareholders approved a motion for the company to become known as Infigen Energy. Infigen is derived from the words infinite and generation.

The massive Hauauru ma raki wind farm proposed for Waikato's isolated west coast might never get built. Contact Wind and Contact Energy counsel, Trevor Robinson, admitted as much under questioning on the opening day of a six-week board of inquiry hearing into the $1 billion proposal in Tuakau yesterday.