Some farmers see possibilities, some see a blight on the landscape, amid a significant growth of wind energy in WA's agricultural heartland.
The town of Ongerup in Western Australia's southern Wheatbelt is in one of the state's largest grain-growing regions, but in a field just outside of town a new kind of farming has taken root.
Ongerup, 400 kilometres south-east of Perth, is the latest farming community earmarked for development as the state pushes to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.ABC Great Southern: Andrew ChoundingHalf a dozen developers already have wind projects in the pipeline that would see more than 1,000 turbines installed across the south of WA, turning the southern grain belt into a new energy corridor."Putting up large wind turbines in these regions, they will be visible.
Western Australia's wheatbelt is set to be transformed into a renewable energy corridor over the next 10 years.Landholders can be paid upwards of $40,000 a year for each turbine, which Mr Thorn says more than makes up for the land lost."It's future-proofing bad years in farming, and that's one of the biggest risks with farming — the fluctuations in the seasons and the cash-flow issues that we can sometimes run into.
The developer, Spanish-owned Acciona Energy, said the 100,000-hectare wind farm would be the world's largest onshore development outside mainland China.
Farming Agriculture Wind Farm Development Renewable Energy Farm Diversification Renewables
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