13 December 2007
Key Points:
Clear government directives emphasising the importance of climate change issues can play a pivotal role in determining a successful outcome for wind farm proposals.
With the enactment on 28 September 2007 of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 (Cth), the declaration of a new Clean Energy Target (requiring 30,000 gigawatt hours of energy each year to be derived from low emissions sources by 2020) and the development of a new Australian Emissions Trading System, the positive contribution which renewable and low emission energy sources can make to climate change initiatives is receiving increasing attention from government, industry and the community.
Recent events in the wind energy sector indicate, however, that more comprehensive legislative and policy strategy is required in order to help align community responses to and acceptance of the development and implementation of renewable and low emission energy projects with society's commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
While the wind energy industry has recorded significant international growth over the last 12 months, the uptake of new wind energy capacity throughout Australasia has been noticeably lower in the same period.
On 22 August 2007, Vestas Australia Wind Technology announced its decision to close its turbine blade factory in Portland, Victoria by Christmas, a year after closure of its Wynyard operations in Tasmania and less than a week after AGL Energy announced its decision to shelve a $140 million wind farm planned in South Gippsland, Victoria. An absence of government financial support and an effective renewable energy target to provide investment certainty and overcome community challenges to wind energy developments were cited in each case.
Across the Tasman, similar challenges face the wind energy sector in New Zealand.
Unison Network recently lodged a resource consent application for a down-scaled wind farm proposal for Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, after consent for the original 37 Vestas-supplied turbines was declined by the Environment Court in April. In that case the Court could not reconcile the competing interests of a national objective to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase use of renewable, low emission energy against a local desire to protect landscape and cultural values in the absence of a clear legislative and policy directive to assign priority of one interest over the other.
The statutory decision-making criteria set out in the Resource Management Act 1991 (NZ) did not direct the Court to assign precedence to the effects of climate change and the benefits to be derived from the development and use of renewable energy over a number of other matters it was directed to have particular regard to within the overall context of the sustainable management of natural and physical resources.
Australian decision-makers, assisted to some extent by State Government directives, have displayed more willingness in recent cases to assign greater weight to State commitments to develop renewable energy sources in the face of local opposition to the visual and landscape impacts of wind farm proposals.
In February this year the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales confirmed the grant of consent to construct and operate a 62 turbine wind farm in Taralga despite the Taralga Landscape Guardians' strong opposition to a proposal which they submitted would represent a blight on the landscape and spoil their enjoyment of the rural setting in which they lived. The Court decided that, as difficult as it was to find middle ground between the competing interests, society's commitment to address climate change had to take precedence.
With the assistance of the classification of the proposal as a State Significant Development, and the inclusion of a development control plan for wind power generation within the local planning framework, the Land and Environment Court undertook a detailed review of international, national and state policy initiatives to promote renewable energy as a method to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the course of its assessment of the environmental impacts associated with the wind farm. Recognising the principle of intergenerational equity and the consequent public interest in the adoption of renewable energy, the Court held that the wind farm proposal was justified notwithstanding the consequent visual impacts for the local community.
Across the State border in Victoria, the Panel appointed by the Minister of Planning to consider and recommend approval of a planning permit for the 183 turbine Macarthur wind farm was able to draw significant guidance on the question of how much weight to assign to competing interests from the "Policy and planning guidelines for development of wind energy facilities in Victoria" issued by the Sustainable Energy Authority Victoria in 2003. The guidelines recognised the subjective nature of landscape and amenity values and required those values to be assessed in light of the Victorian Government's commitment to develop renewable energy.
Having acknowledged that the Macarthur wind farm would have a significant visual impact on the immediate landscape and nearby residential dwellings, the Panel considered and balanced those impacts in favour of the Victorian Government's stated objective to promote renewable and low emission energy development as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The two Australian examples outlined above illustrate the pivotal role that clear government directives emphasising the importance of climate change issues can play in determining a successful outcome for wind farm proposals. In the absence of clear direction from government, local planning strategies and provisions which do not define or provide for the use and development of renewable energy, and which do not assign priority to climate change issues, leave decision-makers with little guidance as to how to align negative community responses to renewable energy proposals with society's need to combat climate change. The consequent risk, as some wind energy proponents have discovered, is that the narrower concerns of local communities can override the greater public good.
For further information, please contact Theresa Le Bas.
