It’s easier to build a freeway than a wind farm in Victoria
Andrew Lawson, who runs the Australian branch of Italian renewable energy company Fera after playing a key role in the development of Melbourne’s City Link road project, says it’s much easier to build a freeway in Victoria than a wind farm.
The engineer’s comments come after renewables players warned that strict environmental rules set for a $1 billion wind farm project in the state’s south-west threaten to block the energy transition.
“You hope that common sense comes forward,” Mr Lawson told The Australian Financial Review on Monday.
Fera Australia boss Andrew Lawson is a former director of Melbourne’s City Link and also played a key role in the development of the city’s Docklands precinct. Eamon Gallagher
The unprecedented rules imposed by Victorian Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny on the controversial 400-megawatt Willatook wind farm north of Port Fairy shocked the renewable energy sector, which is already struggling with cost inflation, social licence problems and slow approvals and connections for projects.
The conditions intended to protect the brolga – an iconic indigenous crane famed for its dancing rituals that is threatened in Victoria – and the 55-milimetre-long, cave-dwelling southern bent-wing bat include wider buffer zones around wind turbines that effectively cut by almost two-thirds the number of turbines that could be installed at the site.
They also impose a five-month ban on construction work at the site every year, which Ben Purcell, managing director in Australia of project developer Wind Prospect, said “just can’t happen” given the required deployment of 300-400 people and major crane equipment at the site that cannot be just set aside.
Mr Lawson is overseeing Fera’s plans for a 600-megawatt wind
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