Thursday 21 June 2007

Wran blows hot on the potential of wind farms

Australian
Thursday 21/6/2007 Page: 22

FORMER NSW premier Neville Wran hopes the highly speculative area of renewable energy will attract investors to help raise millions to develop "potential" wind farms. Mr Wran is chairman of Wind Hydrogen Ltd, which is expected to be floated on the ASX in August, and he was on hand at the company's prospectus launch in Sydney yesterday. "The key to it is the storage of the hydrogen," Mr Wran said, referring to WHL's secret weapon involving hydrogen balancing technology.

The company hopes to raise between $12 million and $15 million from an IPO of 60 million 20c shares to develop a series of wind farms in Australia and Britain. The WHL leaders promoted their patented hydrogen balancing technology as helping to overcome the problem of storing electricity generated from intermittent sources such as wind energy. Hydrogen would be stored using off-peak electricity and then combusted to use in times of increased energy demand and higher prices.

Mr Wran was leading the company's float along with current business associate Albert Wong, a non-executive director of WHL, and former Macquarie Bank adviser Richard Pritchard, now the company's managing director. "Australia has a history of investing in the mining sector and the risks of the wind farm business are similar," WHL director and former chairman Jeffrey Bateson said.

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