Portland-based Keppel Prince Engineering, which makes about 40% of Australia's wind turbine towers, has indicated it may need to lay off 150 staff because of lack of work. Keppel Prince's chief executive, Steve Garner, told Green Left Weekly a big problem is that the companies it has contracts with can't access Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to support their projects.

The price of certificates fell more than 15 per cent last week to $28, its lowest in almost three years, extending a steady slide since reaching a peak of $51 in May and taking the fall since the renewable energy target legislation was passed in August to 30 per cent. Certificates, each representing 1MW hour of renewable energy produced ...But the market is being swamped by certificates generated by domestic solar hot water and heat pump systems, and some industry analysts say if this continues it could last for several years and may cause the delay or cancellation of wind power and other renewable projects because the price signal will simply not be strong enough to make the projects viable.

Residents have complained to council about noise from the wind farm, and if council was responsible it would be its job to ensure the permit conditions were being complied with. Council chief executive officer Stephen Cornish said that at a meeting with the Department of Planning and Community Development it was said council was responsible for the wind farm.

Rapid growth of wind-generated power in Australia could stall unless there is policy support for clean energy once a target of 20 percent renewable energy is achieved ...coal-fired power stations produce about 85 percent of Australia's electricity at about half the cost of wind power, one of the cheapest forms of renewable energy. Renewables account for about 5 percent of the country's energy supplies. "It is an industry that is supported by government and is reliant on that support," said Durran.

Tension between Powercor and wind farm developers is putting lucrative south-west energy projects at risk. Local councils are worried up to 50 per cent of approved projects could be scrapped ...Some wind farm developers have argued they should not have to pay for electricity sub-stations at the base of their projects and then transfer the assets to Powercor.

It might be tempting to imagine some sort of collegiate atmosphere among the developers of renewable technologies as they lead the charge towards a low carbon economy. But don't bank on it. Professional jealousies and business rivalries simmer below the surface and are often not contained. ...But the biggest schism highlighted in the past week is between "the intermittents" (the wind industry) and the "baseload" renewables (most of the rest).

The Coalition has scored a victory on climate change by forcing a series of changes to the renewable energy legislation. As a result, the Senate last night was scheduled to pass the legislation, which mandates that 20 per cent of electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2020. The passage of the bill ensures the focus returns to the emissions trading scheme.

The State Government will roll out a series of renewable energy projects to prove its environmental credentials ...Development charges for wind power projects in NSW will be slashed and the approval process will be sped up. Until now such projects have come with an approval price tag of up to $3 million. This is to be cut to $50,000. Projects that have a capacity to generate more than 30 megawatts of electricity will be treated as ''critical infrastructure'', and so be eligible for the fast turnaround times previously given to 250-megawatt projects.

The fall in power consumption has been dramatic. In the first quarter of this year it dropped by 5 per cent compared with the same quarter last year. It was the lowest figure in over five years, reflecting the economic downturn dampening electricity consumption, and reduced use at the biggest single user, the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, in the first half. ...That has generators reworking their numbers - projects that were marginal while the economy was growing don't stack up in today's terms.

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has savaged environmentalists for demonising nuclear, gas and coal-fired energy despite knowing solar and wind energy are not viable on current technology. Mr Ferguson yesterday challenged the green lobby to embrace a "rational, science-based pathway" to energy generation, saying its blanket rejection of traditional energy sources is politically motivated.

Energy giants Origin and AGL have been busy beefing up their wind-farm portfolios in recent months in preparation for the upgraded Renewal Energy Target -- should it make its way through parliament. But perhaps the most revealing aspects of presentations both companies made last week was their faith in geothermal energy as a significant source of base-load power in the future.

Power generation companies yesterday slammed the shelving of the expanded Renewable Energy Target Bill until at least August, just one day after it was introduced to Federal Parliament and 18 months after the legislation was promised. The Bill requires electricity retailers to source 20 per cent of their power from renewable energy sources by 2020.

Half-a-billion dollars worth of wind farm projects in south-west Victoria have been shelved because of a delay in the introduction of a renewable energy target. Pacific Hydro says the Federal Government must introduce the target before it can build 100 new turbines near Portland and Ararat.

Australia's electricity is about to be greened-up big time - but not without a fight first. Laws to ensure that a fifth of energy comes from renewable sources by 2020 have been tabled in federal parliament. ...Power prices will rise to pay for the Renewable Energy Target (RET), which will be a huge boon to wind, solar and geothermal power. But there's a hurdle to be cleared: whether big polluters should be largely exempted from paying for it.

Waikato District Council wants the Government to introduce national standards for the siting of wind farms. At its policy committee meeting this week, the council signed up to support a Palmerston North City Council remit to the Local Government New Zealand annual meeting which would call upon the Government to develop a "national policy statement" on where and how wind farms could be built.

All wind-farm proposals could be called in under Environment Minister Nick Smith's justification. And Palmerston North Mayor Jono Naylor says it proves the need for national guidelines.

Environment Minister Nick Smith's decision to call-in the Turitea Wind Farm proposal is being questioned after official documents revealed the proposal failed to meet most of the criteria. In December last year, Dr Smith called-in Mighty River Power's consent application because it was "nationally significant".

Having just had consent declined for a $550 million wind farm near Dannevirke, Contact Energy has another fight on its hands over an even bigger project in the Waikato. Contact has applied for consent to build a $1.2 billion 540-[mega]watt capacity wind farm with 150 turbines along the coast from Port Waikato to Raglan.

Up to $150,000 of ratepayers' money will be spent developing a policy for wind farm development in Palmerston North. But the policy won't be finalised until a board of inquiry rules on Mighty River Power's (MRP) proposed Turitea Wind Farm. Yesterday, the Palmerston North City Council's planning and policy committee agreed to wait until after the board of inquiry process to finalise guidelines, which would be adopted into the district plan.

Ratepayers will be lumped with hefty bills if proposed changes to the Resource Management Act go ahead, the Palmerston North City Council is warning. The council has spent $475,000 on the call-in for the Turitea Wind Farm, and says moves to make call-ins easier mean more councils will face similar bills. But Environment Minister Nick Smith said councils should not spend that much, and could choose not to submit.