Plans to build a 340MW wind farm and a big battery in the New England Renewable Energy Zone in NSW have been shelved by developer Ark Energy, following a “change of mind” from some of the landowners involved in the project.

Ark Energy, the Australian renewable energy subsidiary of Korea Zinc, said on Sunday that it has withdrawn the development application for the 54 turbine wind farm, proposed for construction alongside a 100MW/400MWh battery around 50km east of Armidale.

“Following a change of mind from some of the project’s involved landowners, Ark Energy has decided not to proceed with the Doughboy Wind Farm proposal in its current form and has withdrawn the development application,” an emailed project update says.

In a separate statement to the NSW planning authority, Ark Energy says the project has been withdrawn because “it is no longer viable.”

The Doughboy wind farm was originally proposed by Epuron, which was acquired by Ark Energy in 2022. In 2021, Epuron referred the then 87-turbine project for assessment under the federal government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act.

According to documents, the project in 2021 was proposed for a 20,000 hectare area spanning the properties of 19 involved landholders.

At the time of the project’s withdrawal by Ark, it had been pared back to an area of around `10,000 hectares and involved nine different landholders, some of whom owned several involved properties. Most of the land had already been cleared for grazing.

As recently as March, a community information session for the Doughboy Wind Farm was held at Wongwibinda Community Hall and attended by around “65 interested local residents and community members,” the project website says.

At this meeting, the project team shared photomontages to show what the proposed wind farm would look like from a number of different public viewpoints, pictured above and below.

Ark declined to comment further on what, exactly, had changed the minds of the landowners involved in the wind farm, but a spokesperson said the company respected the fact that it was a landowner’s choice whether to be involved in a project or not.

“Ark Energy maintains that the site, located within the NSW New England Renewable Energy Zone, is an excellent location for wind energy generation, and may reconsider the project with a different design at a later date, and pending further consultation,” the company said in a statement.

But New England is tricky territory for renewables. As well as hosting a major NSW REZ that aims to host 8GW of new grid capacity, it is the federal electorate of Barnaby Joyce, the federal Coalition’s chief anti-wind agitator.

Indeed, on the same day that Ark publicly announced its withdrawal of the Doughboy wind farm, Joyce was hitting a new low at an anti-renewables rally speaking to an anti-renewables rally at Lake Illawarra south of Sydney.

As the Guardian reports, Joyce compared ballot papers to bullets and urged the crowd to “load that magazine” at the voting booth against the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and the energy minister, Chris Bowen.

“And the bullet you have is that little piece of paper and it goes in their magazine called the voting box and it’s coming up,” he said in footage of the rally shown on the Seven network.

“Get ready to load that magazine. Goodbye, Chris. Goodbye, Albo.”

The comments are difficult to dismiss as more of Joyce’s colourful anti-renewables “antics,” particularly in light of the recent attempted shooting of former US president Donald Trump.

“There’s no doubt that the Coalition has been weaponising anti-renewable sentiment, but we didn’t think they would go this far,” said Smart Energy Council chief John Grimes on Monday.

“Mr Joyce knows full well the political climate he’s operating in, one where disinformation is literally being used to justify assassination attempts.”

Prime minister Anthony Albanese says Joyce’s comments are worthy of dismissal.

But then Joyce’s stance on wind has been, to use anti-renewables parlance, variable; from getting on the shovel for the ground-breaking at the nearby China-owned White Rock wind farm in 2016, to describing them as “swindle factories” and “turds out in the ocean or all over the environment” in 2024.

His more recent efforts, however – including peddling the poisonous narrative that renewable energy developers are out to “swindle” farmers and ruin livelihoods – have doubtless had an impact on attitudes to renewables in the regions.

“We are in the firing line for becoming the government’s swindle factories playpen,” he has told his electorate.

“No one in Canberra can hear you from Wollomin or Walcha, no one in Canberra cares about what happens at Doughboy Mountain. You are only scary when you are up close and prepared to do something about it.”

For Ark Energy, the Doughboy wind farm is the third project it has shelved over the past nine months, including the nearly 300MW Wooroora wind farm in northern Queensland that was withdrawn from the EPBC process in April.

The company said at the time that it had worked hard to put forward a proposal with minimum environmental impacts and industry-leading commitments, however had received information from DCCEEW indicating that it would not be approved, and it had decided to withdraw the referral.

The project formerly known as Chalumbin wind farm had been the subject of a well-funded and politically backed campaign opposing its development, led by the registered charity Rainforest Reserves.

In October last year it abandoned plans to build the Western Plans wind farm, a 50 MW facility in the north-west of Tasmania, near Stanley, and focus instead of larger scale projects.

“We appreciate this outcome is also very disappointing for all those supporters who were looking forward to the project, including the Traditional Owners, community members and local businesses,” it said at the time.

Republished from RENEW ECONOMY, July 30, 2024

https://johnmenadue.com/new-england-wind-project-shelved-as-local-mp-barnaby-joyce-takes-anti-renewable-vitriol-to-new-low/