September 19, 2011
Australia

Wind farm gust moves to Naracoorte

By Tash Impey, ABC South East SA, www.abc.net.au 19 September 2011

An application for a 48-turbine wind farm located 15-kilometres north of Naracoorte has been lodged with the Federal Government by Spanish developers Acciona Energy.

The 144 mega-watt wind power plant would be Acciona’s third Australian project with others in Cathedral Rocks in South Australia, Gunning in New South Wales and Waubra in Victoria.

Naracoorte and Lucindale Mayor Erika Vickery said Acciona had been in touch, but that she knew “very little” about the proposed development.

“I had a very brief briefing where they said they were in the process of an investigation of the viability of a wind farm north of Naracoorte and checking the environmental impact,” she said.

Acciona lodged documents with the Australian Environment Department for the wind farm to be located in Exmoor just north of Naracoorte, and expected the development application could be submitted by 2012.

Acciona Manager Director Brett Thomas said he was in the early phases of wind evaluation for the site.

“It looks as though the wind is reasonably good and suitable for these sorts of projects.

“We’ve still got a while to go in terms of assessments working with council and community,” he said.

The energy developers must await an outcome from the Federal Government before any further progress is made.

Acciona is the same company currently waiting on an appeal lodged in the Supreme Court over a proposed wind farm in Allendale East, which was upheld based on visual amenity.

Mr Thomas said he was not drawing any parallels between the two projects.

“It is quite a different project to Allendale. Every site is different, they are in very different phases of developments and the land forms are very different,” he said.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/09/19/wind-farm-gust-moves-to-naracoorte/