We usually hear a lot about problems as well as alleged problems of wind energy in Victoria and much less about its advantages. The most essential point in favor of wind energy is that the electricity that’s generated replaces the power, which would otherwise be produced by burning the fossil fuels in Victoria. Thus, bigger the production of wind energy in electricity supply more is the reduction in production of atmospheric greenhouse gases, which cause ocean acidification and climate change.
However, a community where a wind farm is developed is benefitted by:
- Business for the local contractors at the time of construction; transport, electrical, concreting etc
- Employment at the time of construction and to a much less extent operation
- A boost to the local businesses like motels, hotels and other kinds of accommodation providers, restaurants, cafes, gift shops, hardware shops etc; again especially at the time of construction and to a much less extent at the time of operation
- Annual land lease payments to the farmers for turbine sites
Australia especially Victoria has a big potential for wind farm development. However, if this potential is to be built, governments should act more pro-actively. Apart from artificially created low price of the fossil fuel produced energy, the biggest hindrance to wind power development is lack of high capacity electricity transmission lines wherever they are required; and the governments are showing very little enthusiasm for building them. This should be compared with TX where state government is developing transmission lines into the areas with high quality resources of wind in hope of development of the wind farm.
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