MOTORISTS will catch glimpses of wind turbines from the Great Ocean Road from three locations for up to a minute if the Newfield wind farm, east of Warrnambool, goes ahead. Plans for the 15-turbine farm are set to be reviewed by the region's peak tourism body, Shipwreck Coast, during the public exhibition period before Corangamite Shire decides on the project's future.

Opponents of the proposed Stockyard Hill wind farm west of Ballarat, in central Victoria, remain unhappy with the proposal. The company behind the plan began its public consultation phase on the weekend.

The legal bill from Palmerston North City Council's plans for the Turitea Reserve wind farm so far is half a million dollars. The council is to receive a payment of $250,000 from development partner Mighty River Power upon confirmation of the change to the purposes of the reserve. The $503,000 figure was revealed at the council's economic and finance committee meeting last night. Friends of Turitea Reserve Society took the council to the High Court over its processes in changing the purposes of the reserve to include generation of renewable energy. The society had sought a judicial review, but the court ruled in the council's favour in July. The court did not impose legal costs against the society, however, finding the society raised a legitimate public issue that needed to be resolved. The appeal period runs out this week. Mighty River Power, a state- owned enterprise, is yet to apply for resource consents for the farm, which would include up to 60 turbines.

A Melbourne energy company is scouring the region for wind farm sites, promising to pump profits back into the community. Future Energy Pty Ltd managing director David Shapero said on Monday the Surf Coast and Bellarine Peninsula would be ideal locations for community-generated wind farms. His comments come after the state's planning tribunal backed a Future Energy plan to construct Australia's first community-owned wind farm in Hepburn last month.

More than 150 wind turbines are being slated for construction between Skipton and Beaufort. Wind Power, who is backing the push to construct the wind farm, is behind a similar push to construct 19 turbines near Smeaton. Company director Andrew Newbold said the company was looking at constructing between 150 to 200 turbines, and if successful the $700thmillion Stockyard Hill project would be one of Australia's largest wind farm developments producing enough power for 250,000 homes. Mr Newbold said the company had begun its planning reports and environmental impact studies. The first community meeting will be held this Saturday. However not everybody is happy.

Energy giant AGL has formally dumped a controversial $140 million wind farm in South Gippsland, Victoria. The company originally put the 48-turbine Dollar wind farm on hold last October and yesterday confirmed it was pulling out altogether. AGL said the project was less financially attractive than others under consideration. The decision was purely a business one, AGL said. But the Dollar project, near Foster, was strongly opposed by thousands of Gippsland residents who claimed it would be a blight on the coastline.

Ms Bain wants to see an impartial, known body to oversee a clear, public, blueprint of a renewable energy plan that takes Australia into the future, based on well thought out social and environmental impact studies with unbiased scientific evidence of the real efficiencies of wind power.

The Makara wind farm near Wellington will be smaller and about $80 million cheaper than expected, with work on the $430 million project to start next month. However, Meridian chief executive Keith Turner said rising costs and a lower exchange rate earlier in the year came close to ending "West Wind". Only a recent spike in the currency, cutting the cost of imported turbines, saved the project.

A $63 million wind farm will be developed in Purnim after Moyne Shire yesterday approved the project - the closest to Warrnambool. The Drysdale Wind Farm will span 800 hectares of grazing property about 17 kilometres north-east of Warrnambool. A condition of the development's approval included the installation of two water tanks on either side of the farm for firefighting, after councillors raised concerns about fire protection on the site at a hearing last month.

State-owned Meridian Energy today confirmed it would proceed with its Wellington wind farm and expects to begin enabling work within the next month.

A second attempt by lines company Unison to win consent for a proposed wind farm, already rejected by the Environment Court, will be handed straight to the Government for a decision. The Hastings District Council has decided not to deal with a slightly modified application from Unison to build a wind farm on Te Waka Range, near the Titiokura Summit on the Napier-Taupo Road. The council approved Unison's first application, for 37 turbines on a property next to a site where Hawke's Bay Windfarms has consent to build 75 turbines of its own. However, the Environment Court threw out Unison's proposal, saying the cumulative visual effect of the two wind farms would be excessive, and it would be denigrating to Maori cultural and spiritual values relating to the area. Unison has appealed against that decision in the High Court, while lodging a new proposal with three fewer turbines with the district council. Rather than go through a repeat hearing of a virtually identical application, the council has decided to send the consent request straight to Acting Environment Minister David Parker for a decision.

Half of the members the Smeaton wind farm community reference group, in central Victoria, have resigned. The six Landscape Guardians members believe their questions were not being answered by the developer, Wind Power. Richard Evans says the former committee members are disillusioned because a significant landscape overlay across the proposed area does not appear to be deterring the developers. "This area has got numerous amount of hills of national significance - they're all covered by significant landscape overlays and I think a lot of people in the area are wondering why we even have to put up with this when the overlays prevent dominant and obtrusive development on it, and we just can't understand why they haven't abided by the local planning laws," he said.

Renewable Energy System Limited New Zealand (RES) held there first open day late last month in the bid to inform and gather information from residents towards the construction of the Puketiro Wind Farm. On July 28 between 120 and 150 members of the public gathered at Whitby's The Anchor Church to partake in the Puketiro Farm Open Day. RES presented attendees an insight on the windfarm's developments, location, potential size and details about the wind turbines. In addition, RES displayed preliminary visual images - of what the windfarm would look like - as well as information on environmental studies. According to RES spokesman Christ Drayton, the open day had a full spectrum of response's some showing full support and others against.

A landscape protection group is gearing up to fight a new application to build a wind farm nearly identical to one already rejected by the Environment Court. Hastings District Council has given public notice of a request by electricity lines company Unison for consent to build a 34-turbine windfarm on the same piece of Te Waka Range it proposed for 37 turbines in a plan rejected by Judge Craig Thompson in the Environment Court at Napier in April. Unison intends to challenge that decision in the High Court while also starting a new consent application with the council. Judge Thompson had said that the cumulative visual effect of Unison's proposed 37 turbines, added to 75 to be built nearby by Hawke's Bay Windfarms, would be excessive in a sensitive and distinctive landscape.

Electricity lines company MainPower said it has reached an agreement with a private land owner to extend its planned wind farm at Mt Cass in North Canterbury. The extension would double the original size and energy output of the wind farm.............

Major New Zealand power company Genesis Energy is now using the power of gaming to cut through the clutter in an increasingly dispersed advertising market. The weapon is its sophisticated online educational game ElectroCity, which has produced an immediate payback after 18 months of creative, design and technical work........"For example, investing in hydro has constraints - suitable locations are limited, output is tied into water levels and dams are expensive to build. Thermal generation is cheaper but has ongoing fuel costs and a greater environmental impact. Wind generation produces only modest amounts of electricity, unless the wind farms are huge."

A PROPOSAL for Australia's first community-owned wind farm near Daylesford has been approved by Victoria's appeals tribunal but slammed by opponents as a "green wash"..... The wind farm at Leonards Hill, 10-kilometres south of Daylesford, would be operated by the Hepburn Wind Co-operative, which intends to sell power to the national grid and allocate profits to local investors and community programs. But the proposed site is within a kilometre of 18 houses, and many residents are furious about the noise and visual impact of the massive turbines. Resident and vocal opponent Christian Wilde said Sustainability Victoria had granted $1 million to the project and then used spurious scientific data to justify the outlay. "The claims they have made about the amount of energy it would produce, the number of houses it would power and the level of greenhouse gas abatement are completely false," he said. "Our calculations that use the proponents' own data, show the real figures are about a tenth of what they claimed."

Hepburn council is welcoming the approval of a two-turbine wind farm at Leonard's Hill, south of Daylesford in central Victoria. The council itself approved the plan earlier this year, but the decision was appealed against in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Shire chief executive Victor Swzed says the extra conditions placed on the project are reasonable and will not stop it proceeding. "They have had some additional conditions to what council had placed on the permit, they particularly relate to an environmental management plan and also monitoring noise, they require that within two months of commencement of operation an independent noise monitoring program is to be undertaken," he said.

Turitea Reserve can be used for "renewable electricity generation", the High Court has ruled in a groundbreaking decision released yesterday. It means Mighty River Power can apply for resource consents to build up to 60 wind turbines in the reserve at the northern edge of the Tararua Range, 11km south-east of Palmerston North. But critics warn a national precedent has now been set allowing "open slather for industrialisation" of local-purpose reserves.

National Rural Woman of the Year, Debbie Bain says there needs to be better consultation with rural communities over wind farms. Famed for building bridges between city and country people, Ms Bain has now found herself in a debate that has bitterly split country communities across the nation, including her own community near Skipton in western Victoria.