Environment groups have lashed a vast proposed wind farm awaiting final approvals, saying it highlights the growing tensions between the renewable energy boom and communities facing the imposition of energy developments in pristine environments.
The Kentbruck green power hub – spanning 7500 hectares of public and private land near Portland in south-west Victoria – would be nestled between national parks, and internationally significant and federally protected wetlands.
The proposal, which is being considered by Environment Minister Murray Watt after being approved by the Victorian government, is opposed by groups that say it is a good project in the wrong place.
“The wind farm is of a scale that most people will find difficult to imagine or comprehend,” said Nature Glenelg Trust founder Mark Bachmann.
“At almost 300 metres tall, each turbine will be roughly equivalent in size to the largest skyscraper in Melbourne, and there are proposed to be 105 turbines arranged in several parallel rows that will hug a stretch of over 25 kilometres of this wild and remote coastline, immediately adjacent to the wetlands of Discovery Bay.”
Nature Glenelg Trust has restored dozens of wetlands across south-eastern Australia over the past 14 years, and Bachmann said the longest-running and most important of these projects was Long Swamp, nestled inside Discovery Bay Coastal Park.
At Long Swamp, the organisation blocked an artificial outlet to the sea that had been cut in the 1930s – restoring wetland habitat that had been lost – attracting the return of endangered species like the Australasian bittern, and returning flows to the Glenelg River estuary along a 12-kilometre chain of coastal wetlands for the first time in 80 years.
“In 2018, it was incredibly exciting when this community-led project was recognised by the site being listed as a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention,” Bachmann said.
“There are only 12 Ramsar sites in Victoria, and this status under the EPBC Act is meant to offer the highest level of national protection to the most environmentally significant wetlands in the country. If the project is approved by the Australian government, this would set a very dangerous future precedent for all of Australia’s 67 Ramsar sites.”
In a letter to Watt, the Victorian National Parks Association (VNPA) argued that pushing through projects with “poor planning and placement” not only threatened nationally significant landscapes and habitats, “but also the social licence of wind farm and renewable energy developments elsewhere”.
VNPA campaigner Jordan Crook said the development – while largely situated within what is now a pine plantation – would be surrounded by national parks and protected coastal areas, and be within the flight path of critically endangered southern bent-wing bats, and migratory birds.
“There’s no doubt we need to transition, and transition quickly, to renewable forms of energy to combat the climate crisis, but it also means proper planning,” Crook said.
“And if we’re planning these things properly, we wouldn’t be putting them next to Ramsar sites or smack-bang next to national parks.”
The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty that aims to halt the worldwide loss of wetlands. Ramsar-listed sites are considered to have international significance, which is the case for the majority of the Lower Glenelg National Park and Discovery Bay Coastal Park, adjacent to the proposed wind farm.
Across Australia, a raft of renewable projects have been shelved due to community opposition, and in June energy consultant Sangay Wangchuk described the challenges facing the transition to renewables as “no longer primarily technological or financial; they are social”.
“The pace of Australia’s renewable energy transition is no longer being set by climate targets or investor confidence, but by community resistance,” he wrote.
The Kentbruck project – if completed – would produce a total capacity of between 600MW and 900MW (government-provided figures differ) of renewable energy, providing power to a nearby Alcoa aluminium smelter and homes.
To build it, HMC Capital intends to construct a raft of support infrastructure including a concrete plant, high-voltage transmission lines with overhead and underground cabling, terminal substations, access tracks, wind-monitoring masts, and temporary infrastructure including a potential on-site quarry.
A spokesperson for the project said HMC Capital was confident that threatened species would not be placed at further risk by the project, or that risks could be mitigated.
“The wind farm is predominantly located in an actively managed and harvested pine plantation, and the project has undertaken extensive research to understand and respond to the biodiversity and habitat values around the wind farm,” they said.
“Expert investigations into the biodiversity values of the site and surrounds have been ongoing for over five years and have involved some of the most significant and rigorous monitoring programs undertaken for a wind farm in Victoria.”
Extensive First Nations cultural artefacts have been discovered in the region, although no archaeological surveys have been conducted within the project footprint. The HMC Capital spokesperson said the firm had been working closely with Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation (GMTOAC) to prepare a Cultural Heritage Management Plan, and had been engaging with the body to prepare on cultural heritage investigations since 2021. The corporation did not respond to a request for comment.
Gunditjmara man Shea Rotumah has spent years collecting thousands of cultural artefacts including tools, flint knives and grinding stones from more than 20 sites in the project footprint, frustrated the artefacts could be obliterated by development.
“I have no doubt that the road base on the tracks is covering far more, and that many more occur throughout the project area,” Rotumah said.
“My ancestors’ places, tools and artefacts are at risk, with no protection from the inadequacies of the Aboriginal Heritage Act. Damage to cultural heritage is highly likely to occur from increased traffic and development activity in this area.”
Opponents have also raised concerns about the number of threatened species in the area, including some that fly directly above the proposed wind farm site.
Rotumah said endangered southern bent-wing bats, known as Hinnahinnitj and measuring just five centimetres long, were the Gunditjmara male totem.
Other threatened species in the area include Australasian bitterns, south-eastern red-tailed black cockatoos, blue-winged parrots, and migratory shorebirds.
In 2020, the federal government added Karst springs and the alkaline fens of the Naracoorte Coastal Plain Bioregion to the endangered list. Rotumah said they supply water to the rivers, lakes and swamps in the area and would suffer “irreparable damage” if disturbed.
“This landscape also contains many caves that have ‘finger fluting’, the world’s oldest form of rock art,” he said.
“The caves in the area are important winter roosting sites for the endangered southern bent-wing bat. One cave contains art that has been dated to 50,000 years old.”
In approving the project, Victorian Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny noted there was insufficient information before her on how matters of national environmental significance might be managed.
A spokesman for the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water said the department had sought additional information from the proponent.
“The proposed Kentbruck Green Power Hub is being assessed under national environmental law and a final decision has not been made.”
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Bianca Hall is The Age’s environment and climate reporter, and has worked in a range of roles including as a senior writer, city editor, and in the federal politics bureau in Canberra.Connect via X, Facebook or email.
