Farmers who lack rain turn to wind

West Australian
Monday 29/11/2010 Page: 18

Spattered across the coffee coloured landscape in a seemingly random pattern, 111 neat piles of blades, engines and 80m-high turbine stands are waiting to be constructed. Across 18,000ha on 14 farms near Merredin, the $750 million Collgar wind farm, which is understood to be WAs biggest wind farm and the second biggest in Australia, is in the final stages of completion. Amid one of the driest years on record, farmers are turning to farming of a different kind, where money is made without starting the harvester.

While grain yields have been low across WA's increasingly drying wheat-belt, wind strength never abates across the flat escarpment. With three turbines already put up this week and another each day for the next 108 days, the wind farm will start generating enough carbon-free electricity to supply milling projects, businesses and homes in Kalgoorlie, Yilgarn and Southern Cross by April.

Each 44m-long blade looks like a giant surf board fin. They were transported one by one by truck to Merredin, 260km east of Perth. Collgar wind farm executive officer Alistair Craib said 12 farmers across 14 properties had signed a 30-year lease receiving an annual rent and compensation for disturbed crop land. He said the carbon emissions expended to create the wind farm would be repaid 40 times during its life.

Farming brothers Glenn and Mark Crees run a 8000ha wheat and sheep farm and are reaping a "substantial" windfall. "It's well worth our effort to do it. The only drawback is loss of land but we don't lose much land, maybe 20-30 hectares, and it's mostly unproductive land", Glenn said. Mr Crees said the town had also benefited, with the employment of at least 100 local men.