The cost of coming up against corporate giant Mighty River Power is too high for ratepayers and it's time to pull back. The public will be left to fight its own battles after the Palmerston North City Council decided last night to reduce legal representation at the hearing to decide whether a wind farm on Turitea Reserve and adjoining private land should be built. Council has already forked out $460,000 of the $475,000 budgeted for the hearing and if a full legal team had stayed until the end, the bill to ratepayers would have been more than $700,000.

People will complain about wind-farm noise no matter what restrictions are put in place, a board of inquiry has been told. As the wind wailed outside Palmerston North's FMG Stadium yesterday, inside, the board continued to hear about noise issues relating to the proposed Turitea Wind Farm. Environment Minister Nick Smith appointed the board to decide if the 121-turbine proposal from Mighty River Power should go ahead.

Electricity giant Meridian Energy has spent more than $7.9 million trying to secure permission to build its 176-turbine Project Hayes wind farm in Central Otago, including more than $1.8 million fighting objectors. Figures released to The Southland Times under the Official Information Act this week - six months after first requested - show the State-owned power company has so far spent $7,924,287.62.

Motorimu Wind Farm has officially been scrapped. Liquidators for the company have "surrendered" its resource consent to Palmerston North City Council, ending any prospect of the 80-turbine farm near Tokomaru being built. Scrapping the farm came after a deal was struck between the liquidators and Mighty River Power.

A group fighting a wind farm development at Glenthompson, near the Grampians, is worried that a state parliamentary report will award greater power to developers. ...Judy Vanrenen from the Grampians Glenthompson Landscape Guardians group says it wants independent consultants to investigate proposed developments.

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).

People who find themselves living next door to a wind farm are unlikely to have their land compulsorily acquired, despite some residents complaining that the turbines are hurting their health. Michael Pickering, an expert on compulsory acquisition with LAC Lawyers in Melbourne, said there is no straightforward legal process open to landowners who believe their properties should have been acquired before energy companies were permitted to erect large turbines.

Makara residents have complained of constant thumping, ka-thunk-type noises and swooshing and swishing coming from the West Wind wind farm and warn a similar development will be just as noisy. Makara Ohariu Community Board chairwoman Ruth Paul said complaints came from 20 households to the Meridian Energy noise complaint hotline in just two days last month.

A controversial wind farm on the city's southern fringe will finally be built seven years after it first received special development approval. Its developers predict the Myponga-Sellicks Hill wind farm will herald a rush of green power projects across the state following a massive jump this week in the Federal Government's Renewable Energy Target scheme - from its present 2 per cent to 20 per cent of national energy use by 2020.

Three months ago the first of 128 turbines started turning and almost instantly Mr Dean became sick. He started waking with headaches, initially dull but, over time, sharp and debilitating. "I was waking up two days in a row with headaches, I'd have to take Panadol but they'd be gone by dinner time," he said. "When the wind is blowing north I got a thumping headache, like someone belted me over the head with a plank of wood.

Wind farms are here and they're here to stay, so all the naysayers should just get used to it and stop being "irrational", a district landowner believes. Codrington farmer and quarry operator Joe Crowe has scoffed at opponents' claims the 130-metre-high wind turbines will become unviable, be turned off and left to rust to pieces.

The wildlife sanctuary Zealandia, in the Wellington suburb of Karori, says a proposed wind farm could put endangered native birds at risk. The Mighty River Power proposal involves building 25 turbines, 30 metres high, to the west of Brooklyn and south of Karori.

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.

Domestic power majors Suzlon Energy and Tata Power, which have renewable energy projects in Australia, will benefit as that country is implementing a law to ensure 20 per cent of the country's electricity comes from renewable sources by 2020. Sources said the expanded Renewable Energy Target (RET) Bill will be enacted as a law by the Australian Parliament in a few days and will come into force by September 2009.

Till now the developers have implied that it would be out of sight and (they hoped) out of mind. ...But this week we have discovered that the windfarm (if they get resource consent to build it) won't be so isolated after all. It will be "west of Brooklyn and south of Karori" so it will have many neighbours. One of its biggest neighbours will be the Karori wildlife sanctuary, which is worried that native birds could be killed by the rotating blades of the Long Gully turbines.

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.

An almost two-year fee-free period for wind farm development will not be long enough for NSW to catch up to other states, the Greens say. Premier Nathan Rees has announced incentives to boost investment in clean energy generation, including moves to fast track planning decisions relating to wind farms. The development fees that are associated with such projects will also be waived until June 30, 2011.

The man who says Palmerston North is on the verge of saturation point from wind turbines has come under fire for his methodology. The Turitea Wind Farm board of inquiry hearing resumed yesterday, and after giving evidence earlier in the proceedings, social impact assessment specialist James Baines returned to the witness stand. The board is tasked with deciding if the 121-turbine wind farm should go ahead.

Traditional owners have signed an agreement with US company National Power to build a wind farm south of Cooktown on Cape York in far north Queensland. The project at Archer Point will produce 120 megawatts of electricity per year. ..."This project is a first in Australia - a wind energy development project on Aboriginal land, with an agreement that ensures Indigenous training and employment opportunities during all phases of the project," he said.

A North Otago community-financed company owning a wind farm generating electricity on the Kakanui Mountains is the vision behind Waitaki Wind, which could start monitoring two sites within a month. ...Yesterday, Mr McLay and Dr Turner, Waitaki Wind's sole shareholders and directors, outlined more details after reaching agreement with two landowners on the Kakanui Mountains to install wind-monitoring towers and - if the scheme proves viable - construct and operate a wind farm.