Wind of change for firm's Aussie project

Subject to the legislation passing, Trustpower would now be moving on with the first two new projects in its pipeline to expand its existing $659 million investment in Australian wind generation.

The political uncertainty that has stalled Tauranga power generator/retailer Trustpower's plans to expand its wind generation assets in Australia looks set to be resolved this month.

The coalition Government and Labor opposition reached a bipartisan agreement on a revised Renewable Energy Target (RET) in May, which was passed by the House of Representatives last week and is expected to be approved by the Senate by the end of this month.

Trustpower chief executive Vince Hawksworth said that, subject to the legislation passing, the company would now be moving forward with the first two new projects to expand its existing $659 million investment in Australian wind generation.

"It's positive in the sense there is a bipartisan agreed target again.

"The other positive thing is there will be no more reviews between now and 2020, so we're now dealing with a predictable regime."

The Australian Government had originally proposed to continue reviewing the target every two years, which energy industry observers said had been the predominant cause of the current investment freeze in the renewable energy sector.

The bipartisan agreement will reduce the 2020 target from the original target of 41,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) to 33,000 GWh of electricity by 2020.

Jenny Mee and Renee Thomlinson, of international law firm K&L Gates, said the reduced target would cause investment in Australian renewable energy projects to fall from an expected A$20.6 billion ($22.79 billion) by 2020 to A$14.7 billion.

"Australia is the first developed country to formally reduce its renewable energy target," the authors wrote on the firm's website.

However, the Government had initially sought an even lower target. One of Tony Abbott's first actions on being elected Prime Minister in 2013 was to commission businessman and leading climate change sceptic Dick Warburton to review the Renewable Energy Target.

Mr Warburton recommended the target be radically cut, but the public backlash forced the Government to negotiate a more moderate reduction with the opposition. Labor has said it will increase the target if it wins power at the next election in 2017.

Mr Abbott made headlines last week with comments about "ugly" and "noisy" wind turbines, which he said posed a threat to health.

Renewable energy lobby groups, Labor and the Greens condemned the Prime Minister's comments.

Mr Hawksworth said most of the major wind energy players in Australia had offered to host the Prime Minister at one of their sites and bring him up to date with the new technology.

"We'd like to have the opportunity to take the Prime Minister to Snowtown to get him familiar with the current technology and meet local people who live near the turbines and have welcomed the contribution the project has made to the community."

Snowtown wind farm

Stage 1 of Trustpower's Snowtown wind farm in South Australia, an investment of $220 million consisting of 47 Suzlon 2.1 MW turbines, has been in operation since 2008. It
produces 345 gigawatt hours (GWh) per annum.

Stage 2, a further investment of $439 million, was completed in late 2014 and uses 90 of Siemens latest technology direct drive 3.0 MW turbines, located north and south of the original Stage 1 development. It is expected to produce an additional 989 GWh per annum.