Giant wind farm sizes down in bid to beat turbine shutdown order 

Renewables developer Acen Australia has scaled back its plans for a massive wind farm in Tasmania’s north-west, trimming the total number and height of turbines in a bid to get around a development condition that would require the project to stop generating for five months of each year.

Acen confirmed on Monday that it has cut the number of turbines proposed for the controversial 900MW Robbins Island wind farm from 122 down to 100, and lowered the maximum tip height from a huge 270 metres – around the size of current offshore wind turbines – down to 212 metres.

Robbins Island got the green light from the state’s Environmental Protection Authority late last year, but with “significant mitigation measures” to protect the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot.

Those measures require all of the project’s 122 turbines to be shut down twice a year for parrot migration periods spanning the months of March, April and May and then mid-September to mid-November – a total of five months.

Acen is appealing the EPA’s ruling in the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, with a decision due to be handed down in September. Two separate appeals were at the time also lodged against the EPA’s conditional approval of the project.

Acen is hoping the “material” changes to the project’s design will help remove the need for the annual shut-downs and appease concerns about any other adverse ecological impacts.

“We’re hoping the changes might have a mitigating effect on the [EPA’s condition FF6] and minimise the risks identified [to the Orange Bellied Parrot],” a spokesperson told RenewEconomy on Monday.

The changes to the turbine size and numbers are a part of the ongoing application process for Robbins Island, the spokesperson says, in response to feedback.

How the EPA will view the changes to the project remains to be seen, but in its ruling in December it did note that the broader benefits of the proposed wind farm “outweigh the low level of mitigated risk” to the parrot.

“These benefits include making a significant contribution to the economy of Tasmania, as well as making a major contribution to the renewable energy available to both Tasmania and mainland Australia, thereby reducing dependence on fossil fuels,” the EPA report said at the time.

“It is considered that this project forms a key plank of Tasmania’s 200% renewable energy target by 2040 and to the Commonwealth government goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 43% below 2005 level by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050.”

The Robbins Island Renewable Energy Park proposes to install the now reduced number of wind turbines over the western two-thirds of the north-west Tasmanian island and potentially battery storage.

It is being built alongside the nearby Jim’s Plain Renewable Energy Park, also owned by Acen, which will include up to 31 wind turbines and solar PV up to 240MW.

The project includes construction of up to three substations on Robbins Island, underground electrical infrastructure, and a range of infrastructure including construction of a bridge between Robbins Island and the mainland and of a wharf for delivery of project components.

Transmission of electricity from the project site is proposed via a new transmission line from Robbins Island Road to Sheffield – a separate project that will be subject to its own environmental impact assessments.

And while the local council has also given its approval for the wind farm to go ahead, it has also attracted its fair share opposition, both locally and more broadly in Tasmania, based on concerns of its impact on Robbins Island and its flora and fauna.

Some of the more vocal critics have included local groups like the Circular Head Coastal Awareness Network and BirdLife Tasmania, as well as the founder and former leader of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown, who in 2019 said the project’s benefits were outweighed by its impacts on scenery and bird life.

Tasmanian Greens environment spokesperson Dr Rosalie Woodruff said earlier this year that Robbins Island was “simply the wrong place” for a wind farm.

“While the EPA has put in place a five-month shutdown condition to protect the orange-bellied parrot, the other conditions in their approval will not be enough to stop significant impacts on the many other species that inhabit this internationally-significant island ecosystem,” Woodruff said.