LIVERPOOL Plains Shire Council (LPSC) has given the go ahead to a $9 million wind farm near Murrurundi. Now all the developers need is the same support from Upper Hunter Shire Council.

A $3 MILLION wind farm turbine caught fire while dozens shut down at the time South Australia most needed them - when a heatwave left 63,000 South Australian homes without power last month.

Yass Valley Councillors have pledged their support to local residents opposing the proposed Conroy's Gap wind farm.

Three wind farms, including one of the biggest in the country, are being planned for Waikato.

Unison, with Tasmanian-based firm Roaring 40s, was given resource consent by the Hastings District Council's hearings committee for 16 turbines in August last year - a decision which was almost immediately appealed by Hawke's Bay historian Patrick Parsons' Outstanding Natural Landscapes Protection Society.

Makara Guardians Incorporated filed an appeal yesterday afternoon against the Wellington City Council and Greater Wellington Regional Council decision to grant Meridian Energy resource consent for a 70 wind turbine development at Makara.

THE nation's largest wind farm will be built north of Adelaide by the Australian Gas Light Co (AGL).

Hugh Barr, spokesman for the Quartz Hill Reserve Charitable Trust, announced today that the Trust has appealed the decision of the Commissioners of the Wellington City and Regional Councils, on Meridian Energy’s 70 turbine “West Wind” windfarm at Makara.

The Nationals' Member for Burrinjuck, Katrina Hodgkinson, is working to overturn the approval of the Taralga wind farm near Goulburn in southern New South Wales.

AS the dust settles on last week's decision to approve of the Taralga windfarm, the development's opponents are digging in and seeking legal advice to stop the project going ahead.

"Windfarms in closely settled rural areas are not popular and the current ad hoc approach to subsidising and approving windfarms is clearly flawed."

A proposed wind farm development north of the Canberra suburb of Hall has residents so concerned, some are considering legal action to prevent ActewAGL from proceeding with its plans.

Engineers from Melbourne will today begin inspecting the scene of a $3 million fire at the Lake Bonney wind farm.

No devotee of wind power is veteran industry engineer and consultant Brian Leyland. He thinks the limit of wind power is about 700MW before it causes problems for the transmission system. The variability of wind could cause frequency and voltage problems and need for more reserve power and in the end cost the power system and ultimately consumers who pay the price.

AUSTRALIA's "green" energy sector is planning to protect profits by lobbying for more industry-friendly government policy, banking environmental credits or improving power plant efficiencies.

Almost every property in their street, apart from those of the farmers on whose land the turbines are being built, is for sale. "I've watched my husband work all his life to build this home," Mrs Cicero said. "We've never had loans, we've always worked and saved. And now we find everything that we've put in here, it's all worth nothing." The Ciceros had their home valued at $410,000 before the wind farm was taken into account. Afterwards, the estimated value dropped to $270,000. They have not received one offer for their property in two years.

"Because this is rather new technology, most of the information is coming from the developers themselves and they are not going to raise matters that might be detrimental to the industry.... They are trying to rush these developments through for at the moment the system is very attractive with its tax shelters and carbon credit availability. But we need to slow this all down and look long term at the issues."

The noise generated by a pair of wind farms proposed for Titiokura Summit could rip the heart out of the Te Pohue community.

Two contract workers who were injured at the Woolnorth Wind Farm in Tasmania's north-west, remain in intensive care in the North-West Regional Hospital at Burnie today.

State-owned electricity generator Meridian Energy – which has just won a controversial resource consent for its Makara windfarm near Wellington – says it is eyeing another 10 windfarms.