Epuron’s proposed Silverton wind farm, when built, will be the largest in the Southern hemisphere. More important however, is the statement its Australian directors Andrew Durran and Martin Poole are making – renewable energy is available to Australians and it can deliver.

From its establishment in 2003 as Taurus Energy, Epuron has been committed to developing wind farms in NSW. In mid-2005 Conergy acquired a majority of shares in the company, and as of last year, Taurus renamed to Epuron.

When Epuron announced its proposed Silverton 1,000 megawatt (MW) wind farm in October last year, it received considerable media and political attention, nationally and internationally. This project joins Epuron’s other developments - three 30 MW projects, Snowy Plains, Cullerin Range and Conroy’s Gap. All have planning approval, with construction expected to commence this year.

But the Silverton wind farm is Epuron’s biggest project by far. With a likely construction cost of $2 billion, the farm will have up to 500 wind turbines and 1,000 MW capacity. At full capacity it could contribute 4.5 per cent of the total energy demands of NSW, supplying up to 400,000 homes with electricity a year.

“It will be the biggest in Australia,” says Mr Durran. “If it was built today, it would be the biggest on the planet. When it is built we think it will be the biggest in the Southern hemisphere for many years.”

The farm will be located north of Silverton, with turbines on the ridgelines of the Munid Munid and the Mt Robe Ranges. Mr Durran says the proposed development has three key characteristics.

“Firstly,” he explains, “it’s got a very good wind speed. It’s an elevated ridge system with some flat plains around it, which accelerate the wind very nicely and give us a very good wind speed – unusually so for its location.

“Secondly, it’s a very large site with a very small number of surrounding residents. And thirdly, it’s located quite close to Broken Hill, which has got a fairly strong power line system supplying it already, which means that we’ve got good access to powerlines.”

The proposal, which Epuron intends to lodge in March this year, is for a staged development. The first stage involves a 20 km, 220 kV power line connection from the site to a substation at Broken Hill, which will enable 200 - 300 MW to be exported from the site. The final stages involve the construction of a 260 km power line from Broken Hill to the Victorian border. With this power line, the capacity of the site could increase up to that 1,000 - 1,200 MW.

The advantage of the development, says Mr Durran, is that it will be commercial from the first stage on.

“The real advantage of it is that we can build as little as 100 MW to start up, possibly even less than that, and from that size upwards it is commercial at every stage. We can develop and build the project to meet the requirements of the market as the growth and the renewable energy targets come to bear,” he says.

Mr Durran says the reaction to the project has been very positive, with a lot of excitement at national and international levels in relation to the scale of the project.

“This is a completely different scale to anything that is being considered at the moment in renewable energy in Australia,” he says. “And the point of us making that announcement, I suppose, is to take this industry to the next level and say we can deliver base quality power. This one project is the equivalent of a coal-fired power station unit. It’s a statement that renewable energy is available and serious and we can meet whatever targets are put to us.

“This project is the equivalent of around about half the renewable energy target that’s being set in NSW and it’s just one project! It’s a real sign of where this industry can go.”

Mr Durran simply laughs when asked about claims that NSW doesn’t have enough wind.

“It’s very simple,” he explains. “We wouldn’t have invested the last five years and the amount of cash that goes into developing projects of this scale if we believed those claims. We’re very confident that we’ve got adequate wind speeds in NSW, both at this site and at others. We’ve seen a lot of wind speed information from other states; we’ve measured a lot of our own wind speed information in NSW and that’s all been done by the CSIRO.

“Quite frankly, we know that there are good winds speeds there (NSW). So we don’t care if nobody else knows that; we’re quite happy for that to be the case. We’ve found some excellent sites; we’re continuing to look for more; we know that there is more resource than we’ve currently identified and we’ve got potential for over 2,000 MW of projects.”

And what about the factors determining whether or not the development goes ahead? There are two keys to this project proceeding, says Mr Durran – planning approval and the strength of the state and Federal Government renewable energy targets.

“We’re confident that we will receive planning approval,” he says. “The key question for us is how strong the State and Federal targets for renewable energy will be. This is obviously a very large project; it is difficult to build a project of this scale on spec, when you look at the size of the NSW target, so we’re looking towards a strengthening of the NSW target and potentially, of the national target.”

Mr Durran says the wind power industry is poised for substantial growth. However he warns that there are challenges to this growth, particularly the fact that that growth is already limited.

“Even if we look at the targets being talked about at the Federal level, the targets are fundamentally too small for this industry to develop in the way that it has the potential to. So I think there’s going to be substantial growth coming out of those targets but it will be challenging for a number of participants in the industry because, fundamentally, there will be a lot of consolidation. There is not enough space for the all of people that are currently investigating wind,” he says.

He thinks the Labor Government’s target of 20 per cent, if implemented in 2009 - 10, can be achieved by 2010 - 15. The question then, he says, is what happens next?

“That is a fundamental question for government and for this industry,” he says. “The challenge that this industry has had over the last ten years is that it is reliant on government policy which is inherently stop-start. And that is bad for industry; it doesn’t allow any kind of forward thinking, forward development in terms of how this industry can develop.

“There’s no reason at all why we can’t have half or more of our electricity coming from renewables,” he continues. “It’s certainly practical in Australia to do that, so from our perspective, in the long term, that’s where we need to be heading.”

While everybody is talking about 2050 and what might be done then, Mr Durran says that nobody is outlining how the targets can be achieved. Australia needs a renewable energy target as well as a clear greenhouse gas emissions target. For Mr Durran however, the key to the nation’s lower emissions future is government foresight.

“From our perspective, the resource is here; the industry is here. It’s experienced; it knows what it’s doing and it’s capable of delivering on whatever target the government is willing to set. We just need some clarity and financial certainty as to how we’re going to head forward over the next fifty years.”