Wind Turbines in Victoria are sold to communities on the basis that they will help with reducing global warming by reducing the emission of CO2, specifically, that they will reduce the amount of brown coal burnt in generating our power.

On this basis, an important question that should be answered is:

HOW MUCH BROWN COAL HAVE WE SAVED THROUGH THE USE OF WIND TURBINES?

The reason why I want to know this is two-fold:

1) If I can be convinced that they are of benefit, it will be easier to accept them, and the collateral damage done to the landscape and to communities

2) If we are to erect some turbines on behalf of the Woodend community then we need to be able to believe in them and convince others of their benefits

I have discussed this subject with a number of learned friends in order to understand how wind turbines generate power, from what I have gleaned from these discussions this is how it works.

- Wind Turbines generate intermittent power and on average put out 30% of their installed capacity.

- This power is put out at the switch yard of the facility into overhead power lines that take the power into a local grid connection

- The power is used to "energize the grid"

- Energizing the grid allows other power sources to reduce their output into the grid

- Reducing the output of other generators reduces the amount of brown coal used.

This question was put to Minister Bachelor in 2009.  His response was "the output of Latrobe can be reduced by 20% without a loss of efficiency".  It is a pity that this does not answer the question of "how much input have we reduced", it just states that Victoria dumps the output from brown coal to make space for wind energy, and it probably incurrs an additional cost to the taxpayer through FCAS!

In 2011 the question was again put to the new Liberal Energy Minister and we eagerly await the answer.  Stay tuned!