As Barnaby rails against “filthy” turbines, NSW approves plans for a 335MW wind farm

While Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce railed against “reckless renewables” in Canberra, and decried wind turbines as “filth,” NSW quietly waved through the more than 300MW Bowman’s Creek wind farm near Muswellbrook, just the second wind energy project to be gain full approvals in the state since early 2021.

The wind farm, located roughly half way between Sydney and Joyce’s electorate of Tamworth, is being developed by Korea Zinc subsidiary Ark Energy in the Hunter-Central Coast Renewable Energy Zone (REZ).

The NSW Department of Planning and Environment said on Tuesday that the project has been approved with strict conditions that include a reduction in the number of turbines, from the originally proposed 56 down to 54, or 335MW.

The approval was delivered by the NSW Independent Planning Commission, to which the state significant project was referred last year after at least 50 people objected to the proposed development.

The three-member Commission Panel met with key stakeholders, conducted a site inspection, held a public meeting where they heard from 18 speakers, and received 47 written submissions from the community before granting development consent.  

In its Statement of Reasons, the Commission says the proposed site is “is suitable for renewable energy development given its location within the Hunter-Central Coast REZ, proximity to existing electricity transmission networks, topography, wind resources, access to the regional road network, and avoidance of major environmental constraints.”

In response to community concerns, the Commission has cut the size of the project and set a number of developer requirements, including for visual impact mitigation measures and noise monitoring, with the results of the noise monitoring to be published on the project website.