Latrobe Valley wind farm targets 2024 construction after amendments approved

Plans to build a 200MW wind farm in a pine plantation overlooking the former Hazelwood coal plant in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley will move forward, after three planning permit amendments were approved by the state government.

Developer Osmi Australia said on Friday that Victoria’s planning minister had approved the amendments to the proposed Delburn wind farm, allowing the company to continue its work meeting Planning Permit conditions – and paving the way to start construction on the project in 2024.

Osmi applied to the planning department in July to make what it described as “minor amendments” to the wording of the permit conditions for Delburn, “to improve understanding and interpretation” and ensure the enforceability of the permit conditions.

These included clarifying the wind turbine setback distances from the Strzelecki Highway, and adjustments to the bushfire risk and mitigation conditions to remove any uncertainty in what these meant and how they should be applied.

The 33-turbine wind farm – one of Australia’s first to be built within an established forestry plantation – has had a somewhat bumpy road to development, including a Supreme Court challenge to the project’s March 2022 approval that was defeated in March of this year.

The group behind the legal challenge, the Strzelecki Community Alliance (SCA), argued the project was in a bushfire prone area and too close to local homes.

The wind farm, which has the backing of London-based investor Cubico, last year had to put battery storage plans on hold over fire safety concerns.

Peter Marriott, executive director of development at Osmi Australia welcomed the project’s latest progress through the planning process and thanked the local community for sharing their feedback.

“Our aim is to build positive and lasting relationships with the communities around the Delburn Wind Farm and we are grateful to those people who took the time to make a submission,” Marriott said.

The project will have 33 turbines spanning three Local Government Areas (Latrobe, Baw Baw and South Gippsland) with a maximum height of 250 metres to the blade tip, a maximum rotor diameter of 180 metres, a lower tip sweep of not less than 40 metres above ground level.

In the project’s Community and Stakeholder Engagement Report, Osmi says it identified the Latrobe Valley as a region with great renewables potential due to the existing transmission infrastructure built to support the exiting coal and other thermal generation plants in the area.

The report says the existing, privately owned pine plantation offers the advantages of a large area with no dwellings and land with relatively low ecological values – as well as an existing road network already capable of accommodating large logging vehicles.

The report, dated October 2020, says the proposed wind farm has small numbers of both passionate local supporters and “passionate and highly vocal local opponents,” as well larger numbers of people who are undecided or neutral.