A small wind farm in the central west of New South Wales plans to use refurbished turbines from Vestas’ reconditioning plant in Denmark for the “repowering” project that has become the centre of a local dispute.
The idea is to follow in the footsteps of a wind farm on King Island, which earlier this year finished refurbishing the first of five almost three-decade old turbines with help from the Danish company.
The Hampton energy park is a two-turbine wind farm south of Lithgow in New South Wales (NSW), with a total capacity of just 1.3 megawatt.
The turbines are now nearing the end of their lives, and the owner wants to replace the original 660 kilowatt (kW) turbines with second-hand Vestas V80-2.0 MW models, rated at 2 megawatts (MW) each. Â
Dale Calderbank, a director of Reventon Development, which bought the Hampton turbines in 2022, has been investigating the Vestas option for more than two years and visited the Danish factory in March.
“What I’ve seen in Denmark is you can get another 20 years out of those old turbines and be economically viable,” he told Renew Economy.
“This refurbishment process that we’re doing opens up options for other projects as well, like Crookwell 1 (wind farm). Just because these projects are coming to the end of their life doesn’t mean you can’t keep them going.
“I think Australia is a bit slow off the mark with some of these ideas. You’ve got the connection point, and you don’t need to spread more farms [across the countryside if you] upgrade what you’ve got.”
Calderbank has been talking to Hydro Tasmania about its experiences refurbishing the Huxley wind farm in King Island, which was a like-for-like replacement rather than an upgrade, and thinks they can generate 9 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity per year with a V80 model.
The current turbines, which are still performing at nameplate capacity, currently generate just 2 GWh a year.Â
The other option is to simply replace the turbines with a like-for-like model. But with a little bit of extra capacity available in the powerlines for exports, Calderbank put a slightly bigger turbine on the table.
The proposed new machines have a tip height of 120m, up from 73.5m.
No deal
But this vision depends on whether it can repair fraught relations with parts of the Hampton community.
As Renew Economy reported earlier this week, the developer has walked into a storm of controversy with “about half” of the community wanting the turbines gone entirely, Calderbank says.
“There is a lot of local angst about the existing turbines… [with some saying] no one wanted them, they shouldn’t have been done in the first place – I’d say 50 per cent of the crowd didn’t want them anyway, so any notion of more is not on the table for them,” he says.
“I guess we thought people would be used to them, and [given] the V80s allow a lot more flexibility around noise control and wind control, that this would be more accepted.”
Furthermore, some community members believe enlarging the turbines will open the door for the wind farm to expand with even more machines, a prospect that Calderbank says is not possible given the weakness of the local grid.
“There seems to be this notion that if we are able to get this upgrade [of the two turbines from 660 kW to 2 MW] then the whole area is going to be littered with turbines. But technically, that is not possible.
“There is no way we could contemplate more, technically.”
No negotiating
Opposition to the project means talks around community benefits have stalled, according to Calderbank and Hampton resident Jonathan Llewellyn.
The community benefits offer outlined in the planning application pitched a one-off $31,660 payment for something in the community – much lower than the NSW wind guidelines suggestion of $4,200 +CPI per annum would total to over a two decade lifespan.
The developer pitched a larger one-off payment because overheads would take up too much of an annual payment.
The developer has “bollocksed up the amount” with that offer, Llewellyn says.
But he’s also frustrated that many people will only accept the complete removal of the turbines forever, rather than also saying what they want if the planning application is approved.
“I’m frustrated with the community just not listening and not even having the conversation. I understand you want to say no, but it’s too late to say ‘I want this’ after it’s approved,” he told Renew Economy.
“[We should be discussing] what benefits do we want to get? Whether that’s payments to property owners [or something else], but what do we want for the community?”
Llewellyn suggested the developer could install a battery with protected connections to the pub and school, providing secure power during the area’s frequent power outages.
Other developer-led suggestions to do something for the 12-pupil school or upgrade the sports ground were shot down “quite harshly”, Calderbank says, who was told if the community wanted those things they’d do it themselves.
“I don’t mind people engaging. If you’ve got a genuine problem, we’re happy to discuss, if noise is an issue, if visual impact is an issue, let’s talk through a solution. We’re not trying to buy people off. We’re trying to work through a solution so it’s not an encumbrance on their lifestyle,” he says.
Renew Economy is seeking comment from members of the community who are opposed to the project.
Incorrect, misleading
The developer, and supporters of the project, are up against a campaign that is using incorrect information to oppose any new turbines.
A leaflet surfacing on Facebook use a range of misinformation – misleading or incorrect information – and possibly disinformation which is deliberate wrong facts, to sway public opinion, as Renew Economy reported this week.
The leaflet confuses the 47m rotor diameter with the 50m hub height of the current turbines. It then compares the 47m figure with the larger model’s hub height of 80m to claim the new hub height will be 70 per cent higher, when the figure is closer to 60 per cent.
Other problematic claims include property devaluation and peak noise levels, the latter however based on a view that a bigger turbine with a greater swept area could not be quieter than the older, smaller models.
