Australia is in an enviable position in terms of our access to plentiful amounts of land exposed to high wind speeds, meaning more power can be generated from a given wind turbine.

An ‘excellent’ wind site is generally considered to provide average wind speeds greater than 8 metres per second (m/s) at the hub height of a wind turbine – about 60 - 100 m high. At such sites one can expect a typical turbine (2 - 3 MW) to generate about 6,000 to 10,000 MWh per annum, depending on capacity.

Sites with average wind speeds of 6 to 8 m/s can also generate substantial power, in the realm of 4,000 to 7,000 MWh per annum for a 2 MW turbine. To put this into perspective, the average Australian household consumes about 6 to 7 MWh of electricity in a year.

Australia has a substantial amount of land area that could be classed as offering an excellent wind resource of greater than 8 m/s, as well as a good resource of 6 to 8 m/s.

Importantly a great deal of the best wind resource is relatively close to concentrations of our population.

The land with good wind resources available and accessible to the mainland grid in South Australia, Victoria and NSW, is roughly 200,000 sq km1.

Improving the technology

As well as having a world-class resource, the industry in Australia is also in a position to benefit from the technological breakthroughs achieved in more developed wind energy markets around the world.

Thanks to these breakthroughs, now, in Australian conditions, a single turbine can generate power equivalent to the yearly electricity consumption of 1,000 to 1,500 households.

Once erected and operational, a wind turbine will generate power for 20 to 25 years, with no fuel costs and low maintenance costs.

Additionally, wind turbines do not consume water, unlike many thirsty fossil-fuelled power stations.

Expanding the reach

Despite the vast amount of electricity that can readily be generated by wind turbines, the market in Australia is yet to reach anywhere near its full potential.

The main hindrances in the past have been community opposition to developments (mainly relating to amenity issues), the lack of government policy incentives to improve the economics of wind energy in Australia, and a series of ‘road-blocks’ to proposed wind projects - think the Bald Hills Wind Farm decisions in 2006.

Despite the setbacks, the fact remains: supplying one-fifth of Australia’s power needs with electricity generated from the wind, within the next 20 years, is achievable and affordable using current technology.

The reality is Australia’s wind resource is not limited by availability of land, wind or technology.

Applying a cost cap on the resource, CSIRO and ABARE estimate that Australia’s wind resource is capable of generating 200,000 GWh per annum2 – which is almost Australia’s entire current annual electricity generation of around 240,000 GWh.

ABARE estimates that in 2030 Australia’s electricity generation will have grown to 408,000 GWh3 - 20 per cent of which would be approximately 82,000 GWh.

Delivering 82,000 GWh of electricity from wind would require between 15,000 and 20,000 turbines, with a total generating capacity of around 30 GW. Over the space of 250,000 sq km, this would equate to one turbine every 12.5 to 16.5 sq km.

Importantly, the good wind resource land area that Australia has is significantly dispersed across Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland – meaning no one state needs to have a disproportionately larger deployment of wind turbines to meet this target.

Furthermore the land area occupied by a wind turbine is relatively small and agricultural activities such as grazing can continue in the area immediately surrounding wind turbines – reducing the impact wind turbines have on their surrounding environment.

And wind power can supply a significant proportion of Australia’s electricity while still easily maintaining the high levels of electricity system reliability we are used to.

While it is true that wind speeds vary over time in a single geographic location and that wind cannot be depended on to produce all of a system’s power needs all the time, this does not negate the considerable role it can play as part of the larger electricity system because it is the performance of the electricity system as a whole that determines reliability and power quality.

A booming economic opportunity

Wind power is a major growth industry. 15,197 MW of new capacity was installed globally in 2006 with a value of around $A30 billion. It achieved rapid growth of 32 per cent in 2006 and 41 per cent in 2005.

For Australia to grab a slice of this booming opportunity we will have to act quickly and decisively to create a favourable home market important to attracting manufacturing investment.

Australia has a blade manufacturing plant in western Victoria which is providing export revenue and employment opportunities in regional Australia. There are also a number of manufacturers of wind turbine towers.

However the opportunity is much larger

Wind power has a proven track record of declining costs as the size of the market has increased. A modern wind turbine annually produces 180 times more electricity and at less than half the cost per unit of output (MWh or kWh) than its equivalent 20 years ago4.

The cost reductions that can be achieved over time and with experience have been demonstrated locally at Keppel Prince’s tower manufacturing operation, which has reduced the number of man-hours involved in producing a tower by 50 per cent since they first began.

The implications of this principle for government policy are well understood – specialised government mandated markets are an investment in technological development and lower costs for the future.

Government–legislated renewable energy targets have typically played this deployment incentive role in Australia. These kinds of deployment incentives are essential to continuing growth and improvements in costs and performance of the wind industry in Australia. They are also critical to attracting new wind industry investment and jobs in this country.

It’s worth noting that every major developed country in the world has some form of large-scale renewable energy deployment policy. This includes Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, France, Holland, Austria, Ireland - the list goes on.

Wind power projects in Australia

Meeting increasing amounts of Australia’s needs from wind power is not an imaginary, far-off concept - the projects are here and now.

South Australia is almost already there. Projects built and under construction will by 2008 provide 16 per cent of South Australia’s electricity needs. This has been achieved in just six years, with no wind power installed in the South Australian grid before 2003.

Victoria’s 10 per cent renewable energy target can be delivered with only five more wind farms, which are already well developed or under construction.

Wind power has arrived as a major source of power. Over the past several years the amount of new wind power capacity installed globally has easily exceeded that of nuclear power.

Now, it’s time for Australia to follow the lead set by countries around the world and step on board for ‘winds of change’.

References

Hugh Outhred (2003) National Wind Power Study – An estimate of readily accepted wind energy in the National Electricity Market, Australian Greenhouse Office, available from www.greenhouse.gov.au CSIRO Energy Futures Forum (2006) The Heat is On – The Future of Energy in Australia, CSIRO Australia, December 2006. Available from www.csiro.au/science/ps54.html Clara Cuevas-Cubria and Damien Riwoe (2006) Australian Energy – National and State Projections to 2029-30, ABARE, www.abare.gov.au/publications_html/energy/energy_06/nrg_projections06.pdf Global Wind Energy Council (2006) Global Wind Energy Outlook 2006, available from www.gwec.net/index.php?id=65