Wind project wins planning green light after promising to shut down turbines to protect eagles

Plans to install an up to 300 megawatt (MW) wind farm on grazing and forestry land in the Central Highlands of Tasmania are a step closer to going ahead after the project was approved for development by the local council planning authority.

Developer Ark Energy said on Tuesday that the 47 turbine St Patricks Plains Wind Farm, proposed for south-east of Miena and 25km north of Bothwell, had received planning approval from Tasmania’s Central Highlands Council.

The wind farm, which at one point proposed the installation of 67 turbines, before being pared back to 50, and now 47, is still awaiting a decision from the federal government through its assessment under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act.

The project has faced some community opposition in the past, including from a group called NTAG, or No Turbine Action Group, which in 2021 criticised the trimming of the project’s turbine numbers as “a token effort.”

NTAG also said that the then-developer of the project, Epuron, had “no social licence” for building a wind farm in what it described as a “biodiversity hotspot.”

In a statement this week, Ark notes that the Environment Protection Authority Tasmania, which also assessed the project according to matters protected under the EPBC Act, has deemed the wind farm to be “capable of being managed in an environmentally acceptable manner.”

Last year it was revealed that part of this management could include using high precision camera optics to identify wedge-tailed eagles approaching the rotor swept area of a turbine and then to send a message to that particular turbine to stop or slow blade motion, thus avoiding a potential strike.

The project’s Environment Impact Statement includes a proposal to install 24 turbine curtailment devices – the same technology already in use at a nearby wind project, that has had some success in preventing collision deaths of the endangered birds.

“All [wind turbine generators] will be under the control of at least one curtailment device, with some devices monitoring multiple WTGs,” the EIS says.

“We have worked hard to avoid and minimise potential environmental impacts, and the unavoidable environmental impacts are manageable, as shown by the EPA’s report,” Ark Energy’s general manager of development for Tasmania Donna Bolton said on Tuesday.

“The Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle has been a key species of focus. Proactive avoidance and the latest technology have been combined to achieve the least impact possible to Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles.

“Major design revisions have been made to avoid areas used by eagles and the Identiflight curtailment system will be installed across the site to minimise collision risk,” Bolton said.

“We will continue to seek to minimise environmental impacts, be a good neighbour to those around the project area, and work diligently to deliver benefits from the project to the local community and wider region.”

Resource-wise, Bolton says the St Patricks Plains Wind Farm site is an excellent location for wind energy generation, with grid connection on-site. She says the project would also give an economic boost to the region, including local businesses.

“To date we have received interest from 40 Tasmanian-based companies and for 50 local properties, to provide services and accommodation during construction,” Bolton said.

It’s been a busy week for Ark Energy, with a development application for what will be the biggest battery on Australia’s main grid, along with a massive solar farm, lodged with the NSW planning department, also on Tuesday.

The local renewable and storage subsidiary of Korea Zinc is planning to build the 275 megawatt (MW) Richmond Valley battery with eight hours of storage, or 2,200 megawatt hours (MWh), near Myrtle Creek in the Richmond Valley of northern NSW.

The battery will be sited next to the 500 MW Richmond Valley solar farm and will be built on land currently used for grazing and previously used for a private forestry business. There are two landowners involved. It is not located in any of the state’s five proposed renewable energy zones.

On Monday, Ark revealed it had shelved plans to build a 340 MW wind project near Tamworth in the New England region of NSW after an apparent change of mind by some of the project’s landowner hosts.

In April it withdrew an application for the nearly 300MW Wooroora wind farm in northern Queensland, and last October dropped plans for the 50 MW Western Plans wind project near Stanley in north-west Tasmania.

This is the first planning approval in Tasmania for Ark Energy and follows approval earlier this year for its 347 MW Bowmans Creek Wind Farm to be located in the NSW Hunter-Central Coast Renewable Energy Zone.