MURRA WARRA
WIND FARM PROJECT
Community
Consultation Feedback
APRIL 2016
INTRODUCTION
RES Australia held three
community consultation events
on the 29th February and 1st
March 2016 at Horsham Town
Hall, Sailors Home Hall Murra
Warra and Yarriambiack Shire
Council Offices. These events
were well attended with over
ninety people passing through.
There was extensive advertising
with articles in the local
press and news coverage and
circulars distributed to local
postcodes, plus every dwelling
within 5km of the project
received a hand delivered
notification letter.
In addition to this RES offered
personal appointments to
visit every resident within
3km of the project and every
landowner with land adjoining
the wind farm.
FEEDBACK
The feedback from all the
events and meetings was
overwhelmingly positive and
supportive of the project. Local
people seem to be genuinely
excited by the prospect of a
project such as this in their
area. People expressed the
view that renewable energy
projects offer the region new
economic opportunities and
a much needed ability to
diversify the local economy
in a way which is compatible
with being one of the most
important agricultural regions
in Australia.
There were a number of specific
questions which are addressed
in this update.
HOW WILL NOISE BE
CONTROLLED?
The project will be required to
demonstrate compliance with
rigorous noise standards and
this will be a condition of the
planning permit. In Victoria
the standard used is the New
Zealand standard for Wind
Farm Noise NZS 6808:2010.
This requires that at any wind
speed the noise level should
not exceed 40dB(A) or 5dB(A)
above background.
We will be required to
demonstrate compliance by
modelling conducted before
construction and by field tests
conducted after construction.
The tests will be carried out
by an independent acoustical
engineer to the satisfaction of
the Minister for Planning. During
operation the wind farm will
be required to have a published
complaints management plan.
HOW WILL TRAFFIC BE
MANAGED DURING
CONSTRUCTION?
We will be required to submit
a Traffic Impact Assessment as
part of our planning application.
Once a permit has been granted
we will then be required to draw
up a Traffic Management Plan
which will be approved by the
Minister for Planning.
One of the biggest potential
traffic impacts comes from
importing material for
access track and crane pad
construction. We have found
suitable material for this
purpose onsite and plan to
open a small supply quarry.
This quarry will nearly halve the
number of vehicle movements
to and from site compared with
importing from offsite quarries
nearby.
length increases. Advances
in technology over the last
few years have enabled the
manufacturer of larger blades
and taller towers. Put simply,
taller turbines with larger blades
will produce more power per
unit cost which will in turn
decrease the unit cost per MWh
of electricity generated.
WILL THERE BE
TRANSMISSION LINES?
The power generated will be
supplied into the competitive
energy market and this will
help bringing down the cost of
supplying renewable energy to
the consumer.
An advantage of this site is that
the main Victorian 220kV grid
line runs directly through it.
This enables us to connect to
the grid without the need to
construct a further transmission
line to a remote point of
connection as is the case at
many other wind farm sites.
In general most of the
internal power collection and
distribution system is buried
underground, however there
may be up to 15km of internal
overhead 33kV line which will
act as a collector system to feed
power from the underground
circuits back to the onsite
terminal station located next to
the 220kV line.
WHY DO YOU
NEED SUCH LARGE
TURBINES?
Wind speed and wind quality
(low turbulence) generally
improve with height, the
power output of the turbine
will also increase as blade
WILL THERE BE
AVIATION LIGHTS ON
THE TURBINES?
Our aviation advisor has
recommended lighting for up
to eight turbines to the north
east of the site. He has also
recommended that these should
be linked to the pilot operated
runway lights at Warracknabeal
Aerodrome. This means that the
lights would only be switched
on when aircraft are taking off or
landing during night time hours.
The aviation impact
assessment and lighting plan
recommendations for the
wind farm are currently being
reviewed by the Civil Aviation
Safety Authority.
MURRA WARRA
WIND FARM PROJECT
Community
Consultation Feedback
APRIL 2016
costs these costs would need to
be found from either increasing
the wholesale price of electricity
or through some other support
mechanism.
WILL THERE BE
EMPLOYMENT
OPPORTUNITIES FOR
LOCAL PEOPLE?
Yes certainly, a report carried out
by Essential Economics for RES
found that a project of this size
would lead to over 600 direct
and indirect jobs being created
during the construction phase
and 15 direct and 45 indirect
jobs being created during the
operational phase.
Horsham is an important
regional centre and has many
of the sorts of businesses and
skills which a project like this
could employ. The operation and
maintenance of wind turbines is
a specialist occupation however
skilled people with a strong
background in either electrical
or mechanical fitting are ideally
suited to being retrained to work
on wind turbines.
common with other renewable
generators, do however receive
renewable energy certificates
(RECs) for each Megawatt (MW)
of electricity generated.
These certificates are sold to
electricity retailers who are
required by law to purchase
a percentage of their power
from renewable sources or face
penalties under the Federal
Renewable Energy Target (RET)
scheme. The objective of the
scheme is to ensure that by
2020 23% of Australia’s annual
energy usage is met from
renewable sources. The retailer
passes on the cost of the RECs
to the consumer and this can
add around 3-5% to the retail
cost of electricity.
ARE WIND FARMS
SUBSIDISED?
The REC payments together
with the price received for
the electricity reflects the
full life cycle cost of the
wind farm which includes
construction (capital costs),
finance costs, operations
costs, and decommissioning
costs. In contrast, most coal
generation plant was originally
built many years ago by the
State Government and was
sold relatively recently to
private enterprise. This plant is
predominantly fully depreciated
which means that the price of
power from these generators
only reflects the short term costs
i.e. the operational costs and
is not representative of the full
lifecycle costs of generation.
Contrary to popular belief
there are no direct Government
subsidies given to wind
generators. Wind farms, in
Any form of new generating
capacity entering the market
today, regardless of the energy
source, would have to recoup full
HOW WAS THE
LOCATION CHOSEN?
Murra Warra is an ideal location
for a wind farm for a number of
reasons:
• Good quality reliable wind
• On site connection to the
Victorian Grid network
• Good transport links to site
• Low environmental and
community impacts
I HAVE HEARD
OF WIND FARMS
RECEIVING
GOVERNMENT
FUNDING. IS THIS
TRUE?
Wind farm projects are usually
financed by a combination of
debt and equity finance.
Equity is provided by private
investors, for example pension
funds and debt is provided by
banks. Historically banks can
be cautious in their lending
strategies to new sectors. In
order to encourage banks to
invest in renewable energy and
low emission technologies the
Australian Government founded
the Clean Energy Finance
Corporation (CEFC) in 2012.
The objective of the CEFC is
to provide debt finance to
Australian renewable energy
and low emission technology
projects and thereby encourage
participation from main stream
banking institutions at a much
faster rate. It is important to
understand that the CEFC is
first and foremost a commercial
bank and it only lends to
commercially viable projects at
commercial rates of interest. The
CEFC is managed by a highly
experienced management team
from the commercial banking
sector who have extensive
experience in assessing the
viability of renewable energy
projects. This commercial and
rigorous approach has been
highly successful.
Currently the CEFC makes a
return on investment of 6.1% for
the Australian taxpayer (CEFC
2014/15 Annual Report) and
for every dollar invested by the
CEFC an additional $1.8 dollars
is invested by the private sector.
UPCOMING
INFORMATION
SESSIONS
RES Australia will host
another round of community
consultation sessions towards
the end of April 2016.
Information sessions will be
held at the following locations
and times, and we invite
members of the community
to drop in to learn more about
the proposed Murra Warra
Wind Farm Project:
Thursday 28th April, 2016
12pm-3pm
Horsham Town Hall
Thursday 28th April, 2016
5pm-8pm
Sailors Home Hall
Blue Ribbon Road, Murra Warra
Friday 29th April, 2016
12-3pm
Yarriambaick Shire Council
Municipal Office
34 Lyle Street
Warracknabeal
For further information please
contact RES Australia at:
info@murrawarrawindfarm.com
or phone 02 8440 8400