Victoria wind project gets green tick in record time, but developers say federal approvals still big obstacle

A 312MW wind farm and big battery of up to 100MW/400MWh will go ahead in Victoria’s north west, after being given the green light by the federal government over the weekend in what looks like record time.

Federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek said on Saturday that the Wimmera Plains Energy Facility had been given the all-clear after being referred for assessment under the EPBC Act just over a month ago.

The remarkably quick approval of the project being developed by German renewables outfit BayWa r.e. comes amid concerns that wind farm proposals are hitting a wall in Australia’s federal environmental approvals process, presenting developers with lengthy wait times and onerous – and sometimes insurmountable – conditions to approval.

In her decision on the weekend, Plibersek stressed that she has “ticked off more than 55 renewable energy projects in two years,” but the lack of wind projects in this number is starting to attract attention, and warnings that Australia has little chance of reaching its renewable energy targets without major reforms in the EPBC approvals process.

​According to a 2023 report from the Clean Energy Council, around 5400MW of new wind capacity needs to become operational each year from 2026 onwards for Australia to meet its 2030 target of 82 per cent renewables.

A federal environment spokesperson told RenewEconomy on Friday that 58 wind projects had been referred to the department since the Albanese government came to power in May 2022, of which five had been given the green light. The approval of the Wimmera Plains project makes it six.

But industry concerns extend beyond the rate of approvals. Renew Economy has heard from developers that some of the wind farms that have been approved have been saddled with a list of conditions described as “onerous at best and project-killing at worst.”

Windlab’s Gawara Baya windfarm, for example, was approved by Plibersek last month after 32 months in the EPBC process, subject to “strict conditions” on clearance limits, hours of operation during construction, and submission of environmental management plans which will set out how any impacts will be managed, mitigated, avoided or offset.

Among them is the requirement for “immediate curtailment of the entire wind farm” if a Red Goshawk is found to have been hit by a wind turbine blade or 1% of a listed species has been, or is likely to be, killed by a wind turbine.

The condition states the wind farm must stay shut down “until a mitigation plan is developed, reviewed, and approved by the Minister” – a process that could potentially take months.

“It’s hard to fathom how a manager at a Department that is charged with achieving the government’s 82% renewable energy by 2030 target could consider such development conditions on a clean energy project to be reasonable,” a senior manager in the industry told Renew Economy.

The Clean Energy Investor Group is also concerned for the prospects of wind energy development in Australia, describing the current administration of the EPBC Act assessment processes as the most significant obstacle to renewable and climate targets – and calling for the fast-track of reforms.

The CEIG says the small amount of wind farm proposals getting determinations under the current EPBC Act is creating a significant backlog and uncertainty for developers.

It says members have also pointed to the broad use of requests for information (RFIs) and the need to resubmit previously provided information as exacerbating the problem.

“Whilst CEIG supports the Commonwealth Government in progressing major reforms of the EPBC Act, we expect that the Nature Positive Plan and the reforms will take several years to unlock real efficiencies for renewable energy projects.

“Considering this, there is a critical need in the interim to further improve the efficient assessment of renewable energy projects and deliver improved environmental outcomes both on the ground at the regional level.

“This is critical to the achievement of federal and state climate and energy targets,” Crestias said.

For its part, the federal government has allocated almost $134.2 million as part of the Future Made in Australia package in the 2024-25 Budget to accelerate and improve environment and heritage approval processes.

“This will bolster efforts already underway to accelerate environmental assessments,” the department spokesperson told Renew Economy.

But in the statement announcing the approval of Wimmera Plains project, the department says the 52-turbine BayWa project “demonstrates how good site selection can lead to faster environmental approvals.

“Less than one hectare of native navigation will be disturbed as a result of the project,” the department says.

​”Projects need to be placed in the right areas and designed so that their environmental impacts are minimised – as is the case with this wind farm.”

What wind energy developers would like to see, however, is an even playing field. The latest round of politically backed anti-wind campaigns paint the installation of turbines as environmental enemy number one.

A recent study, however, found the main culprit behind 100 million native animals being displaced, injured or killed from land clearing in Queensland and NSW every year is agriculture – more specifically, cattle farming.

“Livestock pasture development specifically is the largest driver of land clearing in Queensland and in NSW … taken together we’re looking at 90 per cent,” said report author Martin Taylor, a conservation scientist from the University of Queensland.

Wind farms, meanwhile, are often proposed for largely cleared and privately owned grazing land.

The now abandoned Wooroora wind farm, named after the privately owned pastoral station that was to host it in Queensland’s far north, was downsized and redesigned at least twice in a bid to reduce environmental impacts and respond to local concerns.

Ark Energy, which withdrew the project from the EPBC process in April, had noted that the much degraded property already hosted an electricity substation and high voltage powerlines.

But opposition from environment groups, amplified by conservative media and right wing think tanks, focused on its proximity (one km) to national parks that form part of the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area.

“A huge effort has been made to minimise the proposal’s environmental impacts and offer real potential for environmental net gains, but we have to accept the Department may have a different view,” Ark Energy’s project lead Damien Vermey said in a statement at the time.