Monday, March 07, 2011

$750 million white elephant?

One problem with wind farms is that they tend to generate electricity a long way from where it's needed, and so it is with the massive 18,000 hectare, $750 million, 111 turbine Collgar wind farm near Merredin. Construction is well underway and it was hoped that power would begin feeding into the grid within months.

The project has hit a minor snag, however:
The Economic Regulation Authority denied Western Power's bid for $21.7 million of taxpayers' money to build transmission works to the massive Collgar wind farm, near Merredin.
On the bright side, a $750 million white elephant would surely draw lots of tourists to Merredin.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Chistery said...

If they can spend $750m of their own money to build the wind farm, they can spend an extra $22m of their own money to connect it to the grid. It wouldn't make sense to just dump a $750m project for a 3% blowout. These guys are just trying it on.

Oh and when I say 'their' money I really mean...

The giant Collgar project has been developed by international investment bank UBS and the Retail Employees Superannuation Trust (REST), Australia’s largest superannuation fund by membership with 1.8 million members.

Got that retail employees? A substantial whack of your retirement funds have been diverted into this high risk green dream.

2:06 PM  

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