There’s more good news from Canberra on the renewable energy front – this time concerning wind power in the Territory.
The ACT Government announced on Wednesday that a 200MW wind auction will be completed this year.
“This is the largest step taken by the ACT Government to date to meet the 90% renewable energy target by 2020”, said Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Simon Corbell.
“This wind auction will abate around half a million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per annum and will generate about a quarter of Canberra’s electricity needs. This is approximately half of all emissions associated with residential electricity use.”
They say it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. It seems due to the Federal Government’s controversial Renewable Energy Target review; which is hampering renewables investment, wind power is currently a buyer’s market.
“By moving quickly, the ACT can expect lower prices now than if we were to defer the required investments to a later time,” said Minister Corbell.
The Territory has been powering ahead with renewables lately. Just last week the ACT Government announced it will commence an EOI process soon to identify potential sites and systems to be part of a 50 megawatt solar technology innovation precinct in the Territory.
In other Canberra wind power related news, Windlab announced earlier this week the establishment of its WindScape Institute in the nation’s capital.
The facility will complete the creation of a high resolution global wind energy database and will also be used to train the next generation of wind energy engineers and scientists.
The WindScape Institute will be based at Windlab’s global headquarters in Barton.
“This is an ambitious and important initiative that demonstrates what local companies can achieve by leveraging the readily available, high calibre technical skills in the ‘Creative Capital’”, says Institute Director, Dr Nathan Steggel.
“We have always found the local Universities to be happy hunting grounds for keen, smart talent and the Institute builds on our Canberra science heritage that stretches back over 15 years to the CSIRO’s Black Mountain laboratories,” said Dr Keith Ayotte, who will be Chief Technology Officer at WindScape Institute.
