A new player in the south-west wind energy market is preparing to launch a major project near Penshurst. Res Australia has confirmed its interest in building turbines on farmland near the small community, with executives to meet local residents in the next eight weeks. The Department of Primary Industries website lists the farm as capable of generating up to 625 megawatts of electricity.

MASSIVE plans to generate electricity in the The Wash are already facing opposition from West Norfolk residents. Centrica, a parent company of British Gas and owners of Lynn Power Station, last month applied for Government permission for the first of three wind farms off the Lincolnshire coast. The company's proposals and the results from its preliminary environmental studies will be exhibited this week. If development of the "Lincs" wind farm goes ahead, a 15-mile buried cable will connect the turbines, situated five miles out from Skegness, to Walpole St Andrew sub-station, where the power will be fed into the National Grid.

A PUBLIC inquiry into controversial plans for a 137-mile overhead power line through Scotland could take nine months and cost Highland Council more than £500,000 for objecting. Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) wants to upgrade the power line from Beauly, near Inverness, to Denny, Stirlingshire, to help take electricity from wind farms.

Building the controversial Beauly to Denny transmission line would be an "entirely unnecessary act of vandalism", according to three senior industry and economic authorities who have complained that the public inquiry into the proposal will not let them explain why. The three - Professor Andrew Bain, Sir Donald Miller and Mr Colin Gibson - have written an open letter to the press because of their frustration that the inquiry is not allowing crucial evidence to be aired which would expose what they claim are deep flaws in the proposals.

Spain-based NaturEner, a renewable-energy company that recently entered the North American market, officially broke ground Thursday on the first phase of a 210-megawatt wind farm on the hills between Cut Bank and Shelby. The electricity produced from the $500 million wind farm, which will be the state's largest, is bound for California, company officials said. Construction began in the spring, but Thursday was the official debut of the project for the public. The fanfare brought NaturEner officials to northcentral Montana from the company's international headquarters in Madrid.

Plans for a giant wind farm that would stretch across the Neath and Dulais Valleys have been submitted. The huge scheme, thought to cover the same size as around 40 football pitches, has incurred the wrath of campaigners who have vowed to fight it every step of the way.

A controversial plan to build England’s largest wind farm in East Yorkshire has been scrapped. The plans for the wind farm at Rotsea, near Hutton Cranswick, have changed from having 43 wind turbines to 10. However, the turbines would be significantly higher than those in the original plans and campaigners have vowed to continue the fight against them. The decision to reduce the number of turbines was taken by developer Renewable Energy Systems (RES) after consultation with residents. But the turbines would be 25m (82ft) larger than previously planned.

The huge structures would tower over Blyth and the surrounding countryside and create a major new landmark on the region's skyline.

Controversial plans for 10 giant wind turbines in the scenic Ochil Hills would have “major adverse effects on visual amenity,” particularly the views from the King’s Golf Course at world-famous Gleneagles Hotel. It would also impact on the nearby village of Dunning and other viewpoints in Strathearn, according to David Tyldesley, principal of Edinburgh-based planning and environmental consultants David Tyldesley Associates. And he added: “Mitigation measures would have little effect in reducing these impacts.” He was giving evidence at the inquiry, held in the Glenfarg Hotel, on behalf of Perth and Kinross Council.

Boise-based Windland, Inc. working in partnership with Shell Wind Energy recently completed a four-year permitting process with the Bureau of Land Management to OK a massive wind turbine power project on BLM land in the Cotterel Mountains near Albion, Idaho. Once completed, the Cotterel Wind Power Project will comprise 98, 300-foot-tall towers equipped with swirling white propellers stretching along 14 miles of ridgeline. Cotterel will provide enough energy to power 50,000 homes, roughly the number of homes in Twin Falls and Jerome and Gooding counties combined. If completed, the project will be the largest wind farm built on federal lands in the last 25 years.

Graveney was the site of the last combat on English soil when British forces battled a downed German bomber crew in 1940. Now the village is fighting a new enemy: the world’s biggest wind farm. The local council, acting on behalf of the town’s 473 residents, refused to permit a substation for the $1.5 billion London Array, which would put 271 wind turbines in the estuary of the River Thames. Royal Dutch Shell Plc and E.ON AG plan to bring power cables ashore near Graveney. “They say this is the only place they could put it — that’s rubbish,'’ said retiree George Schneider, 73, strolling on Saxon Shore Way, a rambling route across the coastal plain. “Why use a green-field site when there are other places?'’

Campaigners against onshore windfarms say they are horrified to learn of moves to build four of the tallest turbines in the Westcountry in the heart of the Devon countryside. The 410ft high turbines would be only 3ft smaller than the tallest in the country and would dwarf national landmarks such as Big Ben and Nelson's Column.

The site will include a visitor centre, a 250-space car park, a "recreation base" to store boats and other equipment and a "living machine" waste water treatment system based in a 50 square metre greenhouse. But it is a glut of 18 wind turbines, 5m high, along the Samlesbury side of the M6 which has sparked the biggest concerns. Objections to the scheme have run into double figures, with many worried that a windfarm would destroy the natural environment. One letter, from Rachel Chatwin and Michael Cookson, of Potters Lane, Samlesbury, describes the turbines as "ugly eyesores."

Plans to create England's largest wind farm in Cumbria have been rejected by the government.

Editor's Note:The link below will take you to the Whinash decision documents.

The world's biggest wind farm, with 370 turbines towering 150m (492ft) above the waves, is planned for the Bristol Channel.

Illinois lawmakers and energy executives announced a 25,000-acre wind farm stretching across Christian and Montgomery counties that officials said could bring hundreds of construction jobs to the area. The plan would create a 300-megawatt wind farm with 150 to 200 turbines on 25,000 acres. It would power tens of thousands of homes. Officials of Dominion, the Virginia-based energy company proposing the project, estimated that it would bring in about $1 million annually in tax revenue to be split between the two counties. ...Construction on the project, to be named Prairie Fork Wind Farm, is supposed to begin in 2010.

The number of turbines planned for a massive wind farm on Lewis has been cut significantly in fresh plans submitted by developers, seeking to allay environmental concerns. Lewis Wind Power (LWP) have put forward a new application to the Scottish Executive reducing the number of turbines from 234 to 181. The wind farm would still be the biggest in the UK, but LWP claims the move will reduce possible effects on birds and should remove concerns from environmental groups. However, last night the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which is one of the major opponents of the plan, said it is still “enormously concerned”.

Efforts to put the second of two of the world's biggest offshore wind turbines in place near the Beatrice Field in the Moray Firth has been postponed. The first tower and its components were taken by barge from the former oil fabrication yard at Nigg in August. However, the second turbine could not be floated due to poor weather and a heavy barge needed to carry out the task has been diverted to another job.

Up to seven wind turbines are to be built in Northumberland, dwarfing the nearby power station. Wansbeck Council has given permission for the turbines to be built on land near the Alcan aluminium smelter at Lynemouth, near Newbiggin. Planners at Wansbeck Council advised councillors that Scottish Power had made a sound case for the development of the land as a wind farm.

Blades have begun to turn on 121 wind turbines here and in neighboring Ellenburg, a 35-minute drive northwest of Plattsburgh. Saturday, they turned with a soft whush, whush, whush. "Whush, whush, whush, all day long, all night long - I moved here because it was so peaceful and quiet," groused Allen Barcombe as he pointed to the nearest tower, jutting up 400 feet into the sky behind his house. ...The New York turbines, in two projects developed by Noble Environmental Power, are the first of nearly 400 expected to go up in five towns on a windy plateau just south of the Canadian border. When completed, the development about 90 minutes from Burlington will represent the largest concentration of wind turbines in the eastern United States.