As part of the Mount Alexander Community Owned Wind Park project, MASG are organizing tours to the Pacific Hydro’s Challicum Hills Wind Farm near Ararat, to provide our community with the opportunity to experience a working wind farm. The first tour was held on Friday 30th May with 25 interested community members departing on the mini coach provided by the Castlemaine Buslines. After a pleasant two hour journey, we were greeted in Ararat by Sean, the operations manager of the wind farm, who took us out to the site and gave us a very interesting presentation while we stood directly under one of the turbines.

Some of the general feedback from those on the tour included how attractive the turbines were from a distance, how well they melded into the agricultural landscape, how large they were up close and how quiet they were. People were also very appreciative of Sean’s presentation and the patience he showed in answering a constant barrage of questions from such a passionate group. We all came away from the site better informed about wind farms and even more enthusiastic about the prospect of having some wind turbines installed in our shire as part of the proposed community owned wind park.

Note the size of the bus at the base of the tower. Click on the thumbnail for a larger picture

MASG would like to thank Emily Wood, the communications manager for Pacific Hydro and Sean for his presentation and also Geoff Hansford from the Castlemaine Buslines for providing the bus for the day and driving us to and from the wind farm.

*************

Report from 30 May trip by Julia Scoglio
Today was a great day! It was the inaugural MACOWP outing to the Challicum Hills Wind Farm near Ararat. MACOWP is the working title for - Mount Alexander Community Owned Wind Park- the working title for an initiative that would be a truly creative step towards providing our community with renewable energy resources of its own for the long term. We were the fortunate first viewers of what we could have operating here in our own Shire in a few years time.

We’d gathered early onto the bus in Castlemaine, organized by Jayson from MASG (Mount Alexander Sustainability Group), to see for ourselves what a wind farm actually looked like. Here we were now, a few kilometres outside of Ararat, full of pies and coffee from our pit stop in Avoca, seeing the massive white turbines perched like elegant, alien map markers pinned onto the contours of the distant hills. The first long distance sighting of the whole ‘farm’ was exciting. So many of these white, anorexic-looking windmills nailed to the skyline all doing their own thing with a steady persistence. From a distance they looked tiny, industrious and sort of naked. Up close, that impression was quite different. They became awesome in their simplicity, size and grandeur. The vast blades circled around with the reassuring swoosh and hum of a friendly dish washer, only quieter. We gathered, the pint sized tourists that we were, at the base of one of these streamlined giants and were given the opportunity to ask all the questions we needed as we were told the wind farm story by Sean, a dedicated expert who has worked there with Hydro Pacific for over five years.

What was overwhelming for this wind-farm-ignorant tourist, was the logic of this form of renewable energy. Challicum Hills wind farm has thirty five turbines parading across seven neighbouring farms. What is mooted for Mount Alexander Shire is a modest three turbines. Even from this small beginnings it is reckoned that 18,000 mW hours of electricity would be generated annually - enough to power around 3000 local homes for starters. This will reduce the shire’s emissions produced from the use of electricity by around 15% from current levels. It will also prevent the production of 18,000 tonnes of greeenhouse gas pollution which is equivalent to taking over 4000 cars off the road. Sounds pretty good to me. You can find out from MASG further details as to all other pros and cons.

What is indisputable is the blessing of such a harm free, non-polluting, endlessly available and elegant source of energy for our human use on this planet. Wind farms are in use successfully in many countries. Australia’s reticence in supporting wind farm development for so long is alarming. Wind farms make such sense. There are economic as well as environmental incentives to encourage us. Again, check with MASG for details. Planting even three of these giant white windmills in our own neighbourhood to provide us with a local source of electricity generation seems to me to be an excellent idea!

As we left, we saw two wedge-tailed eagles spiralling peacefully in the updraft. We were told that they are a regular presence on this hill. Like ancient guardian spirits, they appeared totally undisturbed at sharing the space with the white windmills whirring beneath them like pin pricks in their vast terrain. Lots of sheep were also visible, grazing quietly in the vicinity. We are indeed very lucky here in Australia to still have the space and opportunity to act in harmony with our environment.

Check with MASG for further information about wind farms and future wind farm tours. Phone (03) 5470 6978