Huge landowner-led wind project seeks green tick, despite looming threat to transmission link

One of a handful of landowner-led renewable energy projects being proposed in Victoria is now open for public comment, as the slimmed-down Macorna wind farm is offered up to state and federal planning authorities for assessment.

The 821 megawatt (MW) project was originally conceived as a possible 1000 – 1200 megawatt (MW) giant, but its EPBC and environmental effects statements (EES) propose a smaller version, based on a Vestas V172 7.2 MW turbine with a hub height of 166m and a tip height of 252m.

The 114 turbine project is one of a handful of land-owner led projects seeking a spot in a congested part of the grid in north-western Victoria. 

Don and Graham Webb, who grew up in Macorna, set up WindFarmers Energy Group and signed up 26 landowners in the Loddon Mallee region to the vision. They brought on Atmos Renewables in 2024 to handle the development. 

“This early engagement has been fundamental in shaping a project layout that is responsive to landholder preferences and sensitive to local environmental, farming and social constraints, supporting the achievement of a strong social licence,” the EES says. 

“Ongoing collaboration with participating and neighbouring landowners has enabled a design approach that seeks to balance technical requirements with minimising impacts on surrounding residents and agricultural operations.”

The Murch’s Corner battery and Nioka solar projects, and the Macorna-neighbour Meering West are all being driven by landowners – albeit in a truer sense as the owners themselves fired the starting guns.

What could be a problem is if the VNI West transmission line does not go ahead – as is currently the policy of the Victorian Coalition and One Nation, who are ascendant in the polls ahead of the state election in November.

The Macorna project is one of more than two dozen in Victoria and NSW which Renew Economy found could be at risk if the transmission line doesn’t go ahead.

“The project’s schedule is currently aligned to the delivery of the VNI West project, which provides the proposed connection point,” the EES says. 

“The proposed infrastructure and co-location to the VNI West terminal station in Tragowel, allowed for the avoidance of any additional external transmission lines for the project. 

“This increased social license for the project, whilst improving the economic viability… through reduced capital expenditure.”

Atmos Renewables has been contacted for comment on what it might do if the transmission line is cancelled. 

Construction is expected to start in 2029 and take 3.5 years, with initial operations to start in late 2030. 

The plans also propose 1.5km setbacks from houses and 2.25km setbacks from towns, with a neighbour benefit on offer for the 100 houses within 3.5km of a turbine.  

Sensitive lands

The massive site covers 26 farms in Macorna, Tragowel, Mincha West and Macorna North, totalling 23,000 hectares, and contains some sensitive pieces of land.

Internationally-protected Hird and Johnson Swamps fall inside that footprint, part of the Ramsar-listed Kerang Wetlands, a network of 23 lakes, marshes and swamps.

Most of the system is 8 – 40km to the north-west of the project, but the proponents want to put a 2 km buffer between any turbine and the swamps, and an 8 km buffer against the wetlands. 

Desktop research and surveys suggest there are 14 endangered or at-risk birds, bats, fish or pond dwellers that could be living within 10 km of the wind project, and 10 plants or ecological communities, the EPBC referral shows. 

The inclusion of irrigated land is also a sore point for people who oppose renewable energy projects, generally, but the EES describes an interesting story around the slow shift to dryland cropping.

With the price of water rocketing, more lucrative crops such as almonds sucking up (and able to afford) many water allocations in northern Victoria, and the volume of water available also beginning to dip, irrigation generally is declining. 

Irrigated land at the Macorna wind project. Image: Atmos Renewables

“Much of the land within the project area is, or was historically, farmed using irrigation practices,” the EES says, noting that today about a third of the area is regularly irrigated and another 25 per cent is infrequently irrigated. A third used to be, but is no more. 

“Based on conversations with landowners, areas that have been historically irrigated but are no longer irrigated are to remain as dryland farming moving forward,” the documents say.

“There is also a general trend of further reduction in irrigation in the area, and much of the land that is irrigated infrequently is also expected to be converted to dryland.”

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