Dutson Downs wind farm

It is within the Dutson Downs property we manage, south-east of Sale, see the map.

The property we manage at Dutson Downs spans around 8,500 hectares.

Our Dutson Downs operations include Gippsland Regional Organics, our EPA licenced waste treatment and compost facility, which takes up about 350 hectares. Here we treat waste, including wastewater, biosolids and green waste, and recycle it into Australian-certified compost.

We also use the property for agriculture, with our Gippsland Regional Agribusiness managing cattle, pine plantations and crops on parts of the property.

The property has an important role in our Healthy Country and biodiversity initiatives. It has a large-scale carbon offset plantation, as well as native woodland, heathland and wetlands which are home to a diverse range of threatened native flora and fauna.

We actively work to conserve the environment and threatened species through support for research, on-ground works (such as fencing, pest plant and animal control), and reintroduction programs.

We will continue to use our Dutson Downs property for Gippsland Regional Organics, Agribusiness and Healthy Country activities, regardless of whether or not a wind farm is established there.

Yes. We’ll continue to explore a variety of renewable energy options. We already have solar installations at seven of our sites: the Gippsland Water Factory in Maryvale, the Warragul, Traralgon and Tyers water treatment plants, Warragul and Moe wastewater treatment plants, the Traralgon office. We also have a biogas engine and a hydroelectric generator at the Gippsland Water Factory, which help power that site.

At Dutson Downs, we have plans for two additional solar installations, totalling just over 500 kilowatts. We’re looking to use our learnings from our floating solar installation at the recently upgraded Drouin wastewater treatment plant and construct a system that could potentially be expanded over time. We’re also exploring the possibility of biogas generation technology into our waste recovery operations. The scale of these solar and biogas opportunities would be smaller than a wind farm opportunity.

All Victorian water corporations must have their operations 100% powered by renewable energy by 2025 (either purchased or generated themselves). We have also committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2030.

There are multiple ways for us to meet these targets, including through the purchase of green energy as well as the use of other sources of renewable energy. A wind farm is only one option and even if we did decide proceed to commencing planning for one, it wouldn’t be established by 2025.

It’s likely that savings from reduced energy costs could put downward pressure on bills, but we haven’t completed detailed financial modelling yet.

As part of our investigations, we will need a detailed business case to assess the financial viability of a wind farm in Dutson Downs. We haven’t done this yet, but we do not want to see our customers’ bills increasing.

We operate a network worth over a billion dollars that includes 3,500 km of pipes and 29 treatment plants. Our purpose is to deliver water and wastewater services, doing this is energy intensive.

We are a massive consumer of electricity with a consumption equivalent to nearly 6,000 Gippsland homes. Our expertise in energy management is significant and it is critical to what we do. We already manage renewable energy systems at six of our sites. These are mostly solar energy systems, but also include biogas and hydroelectric generation. We’ll continue to build our expertise in renewable energy over the coming years.

We don’t yet know which turbines might be used, but it’s possible they could be up to 250 metres to the top of the blade – similar to other recently constructed wind farms

The area we’ve identified in the map above could be suitable for 10 or more, but it would depend on where investigations and feasibility studies lead.

A wind farm in this location would be at least 2-5 km from neighbouring properties and around 10km from the centre of Golden Beach. Based on our early understanding, we’d expect that turbines in the proposed location could be visible from some locations when travelling past.

More detailed studies are needed to work out if they’d be visible from nearby towns and to what extent. However, at this stage we’d expect visibility would be minimal and possibly not at all from nearby towns like Golden Beach, Paradise Beach, Loch Sport, Seaspray and Longford.

We don’t expect you’d be able to hear any noise beyond 500 metres from the turbines. The location being considered is about ten kilometres from the nearest town centres. We’re committed to finding out more about the potential noise impact.

We will need to do extensive impact assessments, testing and studies to ensure we fully understand the potential environmental impact, before a decision to develop a wind farm is made. Regulatory approvals would also be required if we were to proceed to that stage.

We’d ensure that we avoid the habitat of vulnerable or endangered species where possible and that bird flight paths are mapped to understand the heights and directions they fly, to try to avoid their flight path. There could also be operating conditions to minimise the impact.