A proposed $1.6-billion renewable energy wind farm has been given the nod of approval but only if it shuts down for five months of every year.
The extraordinary condition has been imposed by Tasmania‘s Environment Protection Authority to protect orange-bellied parrots on Robbins Island, which sits in the Bass Strait off the state’s north-west coast.
Fast-spinning wind turbines are a major risk to bird life and the five-month hiatus would cover the migration period of the critically endangered parrot, whose cause has been championed by Greens party founder Bob Brown.
Under the approval the 122 wind turbines would have to shut down from 1 March to 31 May and also from 15 September to 15 November each year to protect the parrot and other bird species from being chopped up.
However, the compromise, which saw the project also approved by the local Circular Head Council in March, has not made the project owner or the local community and environmentalists happy.
A massive new wind farm in Tasmania will only be allowed to operate for seven months of the year to save orange-bellied parrots from being chopped up by the fast-spinning turbines (pictured, wind farm in Tasmania’s Granville Harbour)
Those groups lodged three separate appeals against the agency’s decision in early March.
Chief operations officer for the farm’s owner ACEN, David Pollington, said the proposed 122 wind turbines could operate for just seven months of the year but that would make the 900MW of power they produce too expensive.
‘We came to the conclusion that the five-month shutdown … just simply meant the project could not proceed,’ he told the Renew Economy website.
‘I’ve been in the industry more than 30 years now and I’ve never seen anything like that.
‘It certainly had not been communicated [or] discussed with us in any shape or form during the six years of work that we did with the various government departments.’
Mr Pollington also questioned whether the restrictions on when the wind farm operates would even spare the orange-bellied parrots.
‘It’s not known whether they actually go across the island,’ he said.
‘There are no records of it … the last time a bird was seen to the west of the island was in 2003.’
The fight to save the parrot has been led by Bob Brown, who lives in southern Tasmania, through the Bob Brown Foundation.
‘This approval is half baked,’ a Foundation spokesperson said.
The orange-bellied parrot is an endangered species that environmentalists claim is being put at risk by a wind farm on Tasmania’s Robbins Island
‘They have approved the largest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere, in Australia’s most significant migratory bird flyways, without knowing how many turbines, the size of the turbines, the colour, the lighting or even where they will be sited.
‘What exactly have they approved?’
The Tasmanian Greens also oppose the project at its proposed site.
Greens MP Dr Rosalie Woodruff said Robbins Island is ‘simply the wrong place’ for a wind farm, arguing it will have ‘significant impacts on the many other species that inhabit this internationally-significant island ecosystem’.
‘Robbins Island is also an incredibly significant area for the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, with dozens of cultural heritage sites already identified in preliminary field surveys,’ she said.
The Bob Brown Foundation claimed at least 30 other bird species, many of them endangered, are also threatened by the wind turbines.
‘This is a bad project made worse by a system that has rushed an approval out the door without even basic information needed to assess its impacts,’ the spokesperson said.
These concerns are also echoed by local conservation groups such as the Circular Head Coastal Awareness Network and BirdLife Tasmania.
The network is also protesting the ‘deplorable’ visual impact of the turbines on the natural environment.
‘The wind turbines fail to minimise the visual impact on the broader landscape,’ Circular Head councillor Steve Pilkington, who is a member of the network, said.
‘The turbines that have been approved are up to 270 metres high.
‘It is the wrong location for a large-scale industrial wind farm such as has been approved by council and we have high community support to challenge this appalling approval.’
The council voted to approve the project by five votes to one, although three councillors recused themselves because of conflict of interests.
Circular Head Councillor Tony Hine described the Robbins Island wind farm as a ‘critical thing for Tasmania’.
‘Somewhere along the line, we have got to try and generate the electricity that allows you to cook your toast in the morning, and all those sorts of things,’ he said.
‘We’ve got to keep moving forward. This project is shovel-ready.’
The Environment Protection Authority said 383 representations were received about the project.
These covered potential impacts to threatened birds and animals, the threat to native vegetation and noise emissions.
Greens party founder Bob Brown has been an outspoken opponent of the Robbins Island wind farm
However, the Authority concluded the broader benefits of the wind farm ‘outweigh the low level of mitigated risk’ to the parrot.
‘Benefits include making a significant contribution to the economy of Tasmania, as well as making a major contribution to the renewable energy available to both Tasmania and mainland Australia, thereby reducing dependence on fossil fuels,’ the EPA report says.
ACEN, which is owned by Power China Group and Goldwind Capital Australia, welcomed the decision.
Mr Pollington called it ‘an exciting next step in the project’s journey that will help lower electricity prices for all Tasmanians’.
Under the approved proposal 122 wind turbines will be scattered over the western two-thirds of the island with accompanying battery storage.
The new wind farm would sit beside Jim’s Plain Renewable Energy Park, also owned by ACEN, which will include up to 31 wind turbines and solar PV up to 240MW.
Three substations would also have to built on Robbins Island along with underground electrical infrastructure, a bridge to the mainland as well as a wharf for delivery of project components.
A new transmission line from Robbins Island Road to Sheffield will also be needed to send the generated electricity but this is a separate project subject to its own environmental impact assessments.
