TRANSCRIPT ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE Inquiry into the approvals process for renewable energy projects Adelaide — 28 September 2009 Members Ms J. Duncan Mr J. Pandazopoulos Mrs C. Fyffe Mrs D. Petrovich Mr C. Ingram Mr M. Viney Ms T. Lobato Mr P. Walsh Chair: Mr J. Pandazopoulos Deputy Chair: Mr C. Ingram Staff Executive Officer: Ms C. Williams Research Officer: Ms T. Burton Witnesses Mayor M. Braes, and Mr F. Brennan, chief executive officer, Wattle Range Council. 28 September 2009 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 229 The DEPUTY CHAIR — I declare open this hearing of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee inquiry into the approvals process for renewable energy projects in Victoria. I welcome the Wattle Range Council mayor, Mark Braes, and the chief executive officer, Frank Brennan. All evidence taken at this hearing is protected by parliamentary privilege as provided under the Constitution Act 1975 and is further subject to the provisions of the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003. Any comments you make outside the hearing may not be afforded such privilege. All evidence given today is being recorded, and you will be provided with a proof version of the transcript in the next couple of weeks. Cr Braes, would you like to make a statement to the committee before answering some questions? Cr BRAES — Yes. Thank you for your welcome. I am happy to do that and grateful for the opportunity to present to you today. Development of wind farms in our council area probably goes back to about 1989 when a local developer came into the region; Paul Hutchinson was his name. From my recollection Paul had been looking for potential sites for wind farm developments around the whole of Australia and ascertained that an area behind Lake Bonney in our area had prime wind potential. There are presently about 129 turbines spinning around day to day, producing about 300 megawatts of electricity, which represents about one-eighth of South Australia’s present energy needs. Total expenditure on those projects is about $546 million, with each wind turbine costing about $4.2 million. Babcock and Brown’s Lake Bonney wind farm development was the first wind farm development in Wattle Range, and it has a rated capacity of about 240 megawatts, making it one of the largest in the world. As I said, that equates to about one-eighth of the state of South Australia’s total electricity demand or approximately one-sixteenth of the state’s total electricity demand during an extremely hot summer’s day. The wind turbines have a blade span of 33 metres and are 100 metres above the ground, weighing some 6 tonnes, with the total weight of the wind turbine being about 23 tonnes. One windmill generates enough power for about 1100 homes. As I said earlier, the work on the Lake Bonney wind farm commenced in about 1989 when Paul Hutchinson brought a team of three overseas consultants to assess the Lake Bonney site. Development approval was granted in June 1999 by council, and in September 2004 the wind farm was commissioned with 46 wind turbines originally becoming operational. All electricity from the windmills is connected by an underground 33 000 volt electricity cable to a $10.5 million wind farm electric substation where the voltage is stepped up to 132 000 volts and then transmitted into the Snuggery substation and then into the national grid. Stage 2 of the Babcock and Brown Lake Bonney wind farm will see the addition of 60 wind turbines. The Canunda wind farm at Lake Bonney was a separate development which represented diversification of International Power’s energy business in Australia. The Canunda wind farm, commissioned in 2005, consists of 23 two-megawatt wind turbines with each blade spanning 33 metres. The farm spans an area 8 kilometres long by 3 kilometres wide and is linked to the ETSA distribution network at the Snuggery substation. Annually the wind farm producers 36 megawatts and would power about 30 000 homes. There is a greenhouse gas saving of about 140 000 tonnes of CO2. That is a general, broad sweep of the history of it. The only other comment I would make as the mayor before giving the CEO an opportunity to talk more about the planning processes and technical matters is that the land these turbines are on is marginal farming land. Although visible from the nearby town of Millicent and other areas it is not directly adjacent to heavily populated areas. There was very little, if any, opposition right from the first stage. It was clear to me back in 1999 when I first came to council as a councillor that Paul Hutchinson, the individual, was driven to develop wind energy. He threw all his money, time and effort into this, and he did a lot of work with the landowners very early on. Engagement with the landowners was done early, as was engagement with the community and not just the council. To me, coupled with the reality regarding the use of that land, was one of the reasons there was very little resistance to the development. My sense is also that the Wattle Range Council area, or the south-east or limestone coast or whatever you want to call it, is an area where people are looking for development and have historically, so there has just not been the widespread community resistance that I have seen in other areas around Australia. My recollection is that apart from one landowner who opposed it — and you can see that there is a gap between the turbines in one section — all of the other landowners who were approached were happy to participate in the process. With that I will hand over to the CEO. 28 September 2009 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 230 Mr BRENNAN — Thank you for this opportunity. I will try to address the specific dot points that came up and the role of council in assessing and progressing renewable energy projects. Council is primarily a planning authority under the provisions of the Development Act 1993 and is responsible, through its development assessment panel for the assessment of development applications that come before it. Under that act, council is required to appoint a development assessment panel which consists of four independent members and three councillors or staff members of the council. When that first came about I was a bit ambivalent about whether it was a good or bad thing. However, Wattle Range Council has had over a period of time an active role in promoting economic development, so I think the independence of the development assessment panel removes that potential conflict around council being the planning authority while also promoting development in its region. Under the legislation there are two possible paths available for developers, especially with large-scale projects such as wind farms. One is major project status under the act. They have to make application through the Development Assessment Commission and ultimately the minister to become a major project and then through council as the local planning authority. When we get a development application we assess it against the provisions of the development plan, which is probably third in the hierarchy of the legislation. First of all you have the act and regulations, then you have the state’s planning strategy, which is broken down into subregional strategies — we have one for the limestone coast region of the state — then you have your development plan, which is for your local council area. They are created and amended by local councils in consultation with the local community and government agencies through a process called the development plan amendment process or DPA for a short. While this is being promoted as a bottom-up process, driven by the local community, in reality the experience has been that it is probably a bit of a bottom-up and top-down process where the resulting changes to development plans can be pervaded by much state government policy, including the insertion of provisions relating to a whole range of things including in recent times matters dealing with renewable energy projects. Our plan contains provisions in relation to renewable energy projects, that in a general sense are about minimising adverse impacts and maximising positive impacts on the environment, the local community and the state. Under the legislation the process also requires us to mandatorily refer certain applications to government agencies, depending on what they may be. In the case of wind farms referral is predominantly to the Environment Protection Authority in relation to those renewable energy projects. Under legislation we have a three-month statutory time frame for making a determination unless we ask for further information, at which time the clock stops, if you like, for that three-month period. The development plan is the primary document against which councils assess development applications, and once again there is a hierarchy of provisions. There are council-wide provisions — for example, our renewable energy provisions are not within particular zones; they are at a higher level, depending on where you want to go. Renewable energy projects are merit based in all of our planning zones, as opposed to complying or non-complying. You end up with council-wide provisions at a higher level and then specific zone provisions. Within the zones there are zone objectives, principles of development control and procedural matters, which include complying, non-complying and notification issues. All of our renewable energy projects have been described as category 3, so there is full public notification to landowners who are impacted, adjacent landowners likely to be impacted — so all adjoining landowners — and a public notice in the local paper.