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What is it?
Beautiful, silent and non-polluting, wind energy is already a success story in many countries. Wind turbine farms supply electricity to millions of people, employing tens of thousands of people and generating billions of dollars in revenue. Globally, more than 55,000 wind turbines are in operation. The industry employs about 70,000 people, is worth $8 billion and is growing at a rate of almost 40% per year.
Wind energy is harnessed and converted to electricity. Generating electricity from the wind is clean, safe and inexhaustible. It's a commercially proven and viable renewable energy technology. It's the world's fastest growing renewable energy technology, on track to provide 12% of global energy by 2020.Wind turbines cause no emissions during operation and take 2-3 months to produce the amount of energy that they consume in their entire lifecycle (manufacture, installation, operation, maintenance and decommissioning).
Wind Directions magazine, Feb/Mar 2008
How powerful is it?
There is enough power in the wind across the earth's six continents to supply four times the world's energy needs. Today, wind power already supplies electricity to around 14 million households. That's more than 35 million people.
With our abundant open spaces, Australia has the potential to harness more wind energy than we could ever use. A wind blowing across south-western WA could supply 45 times Australia's energy needs.
How does it work?
We can harness the wind's energy through 'wind farms' of turbines that look like modern windmills. As they turn, the turbines generate electricity. This electricity is fed into the grid to supplement (and eventually replace) electricity generated from fossil fuels.
Problems
Land use: Where do you build wind farms? A wind farm needs space for its turbines. However, land around the base of turbines can still be used for other purposes, such as grazing cattle. Wind farm land leases also provide valuable income for farmers.
In Britain and Europe offshore wind farms are being considered to avoid adding to already crowded landscapes. However, Australia has far more open space. Here we need to ensure local communities are happy with planned wind farms. Experience shows that early community involvement in the development process can ensure support from the community and clean energy.
Cost: Over the past decade, advances in wind energy technology have made it almost cost-competitive with fossil fuel energy. Continued technological improvements and increased reliance on wind energy could make it as cheap as coal power by 2015.
Wind energy in Australia
Wind farms already contribute power to electricity grids in Australia with some 27 wind farms operating in the country today. Enough wind power was being generated by the end of 2003, on average, to supply electricity to all the homes in a city the size of Canberra.
According to the Australian Wind Energy Association, a target of 5000 MW of wind power by 2010 will:
- create more than 9300 jobs;
- bring nearly $10 billion in much needed investment to regional Australia;
- create enough power to run at least 2.3 million households. That's almost all the homes in NSW and the ACT combined;
- cut annual carbon dioxide emissions by more than 15 million tonnes. That's the same as taking 3.4 million cars off the road!
Further information
The Australian Department of Climate ChangeNSW Department of Energy, Utilities and Sustainability
Australian Wind Energy Association
