A turn for the better
If there’s one thing Wonthaggi has plenty of it’s wind. Energy researcher BEN COURTICE looks at whether it could prove to be one of the shire’s biggest assets.
IF YOU install solar panels to offset your entire electricity use, you pay no electricity bill – you may even get a credit. There are options to achieve this on a larger, regional or town scale, if communities work together.
Wonthaggi could supply all its own energy, on an annual basis, from a small wind farm. In fact, it could easily be a net exporter of large amounts of renewable energy, via the electricity grid, as the wind resource in the region is better than most parts of the country.Crunching the numbers based on the existing information makes this clear.The small existing Wonthaggi wind farm has a nominal capacity of 12 megawatts (MW) from its six turbines. Its annual output in 2011 was 28.3 gigawatt-hours (GWh).
With a population of just under 6900 in 2011, Wonthaggi has about a third of the Shire’s mainland population. Assuming a similar proportion of electricity use, that makes about 25 GWh per year energy use (using state government energy use figures from 2007).
With a population of just under 6900 in 2011, Wonthaggi has about a third of the Shire’s mainland population. Assuming a similar proportion of electricity use, that makes about 25 GWh per year energy use (using state government energy use figures from 2007).
That’s less than the output of the wind farm. So six two-megawatt turbines can do the job now.
If the aim is energy independence, though, much more can be done. Continue reading “A turn for the better”
yes2renewables.org 