The New South Wales Government has given planning approval for a wind farm at Gullen Range, near Goulburn in the state's south, despite an ongoing case in the Land and Environment Court. The Government has given the $250 million plan the green light after putting in place measures to protect the powerful owl and the wedgetail eagle.

A proposed wind farm in the Kakanui Ranges near Oamaru would be more efficient and lower-cost than a hydro power scheme, an expert witness has told the Environment Court. Meridian Energy is seeking to take water from Lake Waitaki and pass it through a tunnel and power station before discharging the water into the Waitaki River at Stonewall.

The Kakanui Mountains in North Otago are being investigated by a new company for a wind farm to generate electricity. Waitaki Wind, set up recently by former Meridian Energy Ltd chief executive Keith Turner and former Waitaki mayor Alan McLay, is negotiating with landowners on the Kakanui Mountains to get access to start monitoring, according to evidence at the Environment Court yesterday.

The New South Wales Government has given planning approval for a wind farm at Gullen Range, near Goulburn, after putting in place measures to protect the powerful owl and the wedgetail eagle. ...Ms Keneally says the the use of some turbines will have to be restricted when the young owls are learning to fly.

Former Waitaki mayor Alan McLay and former power company chief executive Keith Turner have set up a company to investigate the potential of new wind farms. They are the sole shareholders and directors of Waitaki Wind, registered to look at areas in the central South Island for wind farms.

The announcement follows a recent proposal for a 50-megawatt wind turbine at Shannons Flat near Cooma by Sydney company CBD Energy Limited. The inquiry's chairman, Upper House Greens MP Ian Cohen, says it will look at the best locations for farms and their impact on property values.

South Australia must be careful about becoming too reliant on wind power, the Essential Services Commission has warned. ...By the end of next year capacity would exceed 1000MW - equivalent to nearly a third of peak demand. ...Mr Walsh said while capacity was high, wind farms generally only delivered about a third of that on average over a year and could only be relied on for about 10 per cent of their capacity to meet peak demand.

Trustpower has failed in its bid to have more than $30,000 in costs awarded against a group that dropped an appeal against the company's plans for a big wind farm ...An Environment Court ruling, released yesterday, ruled no costs should be awarded against the Upland Landscape Protection Society which had lodged an appeal against TrustPower's planned $400 million wind farm at Kaiwera Downs, near Gore.

Ambiguous language has left Palmerston North City Council scrambling to meet a tough deadline if it wants Local Government New Zealand to support national guidelines for wind farms. The council had applied to have a remit included on LGNZ's annual meeting agenda, calling for a national policy statement on wind farms.

In a statement to the stock market on Wednesday, Infigen said it had settled on the terms for acquiring Babcock's Australian and New Zealand wind energy projects and its US wind asset management business. "The total consideration for these acquisitions is $23.5 million," Infigen said in a statement.

The company behind a proposal to build a multi-million dollar wind farm on the New South Wales Monaro admits it has been negligent by not consulting the shire council. The Cooma-Monaro Mayor, Vin Good says C-B-D Energy Limited hasn't made contact about its Shannons Flat wind farm project.

The Marlborough Environment Centre has decided against appealing the resource consent granted for a Ward wind farm to the Environment Court, after agreement was reached to reduce the turbine size to two-thirds of its initial height. ..."So our point of view is we will have less landscape effects," Mr Browning said, though he still had concerns over the visual impact of turbines in general.

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.

More turbines could be spinning on the Tararua Ranges. NZ Windfarms has applied to expand the Te Rere Hau wind farm, asking for consent for another 56 turbines.

Changes in the exchange rate are making wind farm proposals uneconomic and relying on them to meet the growing demand for electricity in this country was unwise ...The recent substantial drop in the New Zealand dollar had "adversely affected the commercial viability of all proposed wind farms and would have made many, if not all, uneconomic at the current exchange rate," economic consultant Philip Donnelly, of Christchurch, said.

Approval has been given for Australia's biggest wind farm to be built near Broken Hill in New South Wales. Almost 600 turbines will generate enough electricity for more than 400,000 homes. A forest of giant turbines will emerge from the red dust of the Australian outback near the isolated town famous for its lead and zinc mining.

Contact Energy's warning underlying profit this year could fall up to 33 per cent because of lower wholesale electricity prices came with a sting - those prices could stay low all year. Contact Energy's shares fell 13c to $5.67 continuing a slide of more than 20 per cent this year. ...In January, Contact warned the unusual mix of operating conditions would see earnings before interest, tax, deprecation, amortisation and financial instruments would fall by 20-23 per cent for the full year.