Mid North SA is a variably defined area that extends from around Rhynie (85 km north of Adelaide) in the south to around Jamestown (180 km north of Adelaide) in the north and from Burra in the east to Port Pirie in the west. It is about 80 km wide and is mainly in the northern Mount Lofty Ranges.
Mid North South Australia is carbon-negativeThe Mid North is probably the first region in the nation to abate more carbon than it releases into the atmosphere and this is due mainly to wind power!
Total emissions for Australia (about 2014) were 538 million tonnes of greenhouse gasses per year, so on average each Australian is responsible for 23 tonnes each year. Figuring on a population of 43,000 for the Mid North we can calculate the region's annual emissions at around one million tonnes.
On the other side of the equation our wind farms abated something like three million tonnes of greenhouse carbon dioxide each year by replacing fossil fuel-generated electricity with clean, renewable electricity.
All those who have had some part in supporting the construction of these environmental assets deserve a pat on the back. They will be able to tell their grandchildren that they did their bit to minimize the climate change disaster.
Mid North SA, with its wind farms, is showing what can be doneAt the end of 2015 Australia had about 3 GW of installed solar PV power and about the same amount of installed wind power. There was also some bio-gas energy – mainly from land fill methane recovery – very little solar thermal, geothermal and wave energy, and no tidal energy development.
The big new Snowtown Stage 2 Wind Farm, which I can see from near where I live, had recently been completed. It added 270 MW to Australia's renewable energy generating capacity and increased South Australia's installed wind power to 1475 MW; close to half of Australia's total at the time. In SA 890 MW, 60% of our wind power, was in the Mid North.
The Mid North's wind farms reduce Australia's greenhouse gas production by around three million tonnes each year from what it would have been if our power was still being generated by burning fossil fuels. This is a wonderful achievement; a great step toward taking on the climate change and ocean acidification problems.
The population of the five council districts in the Mid North is 43 000 so our wind farms were generating around 7200 Watts per Mid North resident. Average home power consumption per person in the Mid North was around 260 Watts.
In terms of installed wind power the Watts per person in the Mid North was 21 000, compared to Denmark (by far the highest nation in the world) which had about 860. Australia, as a whole, had about 117 Watts of installed wind power per person and was ranked about 15th among the world's nations.
In a world that is being greatly damaged by climate change and in which
the oceans are steadily becoming more acidic because of the carbon dioxide
that they are being forced to absorb, this renewable energy development
in our own back yard is something of which we, the people of the
Mid North, sould be intensely proud.
Instead, because we are in what may be the slowest nation in the world to
wake up to the climate change threat, rather than pride we have apathy, and
among a significant number of people, ill-informed fear.
Unlike coal-fired power stations, which kill millions of people each year
world wide and cause many more serious illnesses from their
pollution, the Mid North's wind turbines harm no one.
In fact our wind turbines
save lives by displacing coal-fired power stations.
For example, one of Port Augusta's coal-fired power stations has been closed
down and another only operates about half of each year, largely because of
the electricity generated by the Mid North's wind farms.
Coming next in the Mid North, and in Australia, is the Hallett group at 351 MW; (the third biggest wind farm in Australia if considered as one unit).
The Mid North wind farms are among the most productive in Australia. While the weighted average capacity factor for SE Australia's wind farms is about 35%, the figure for those in the Mid North is close to 40%. (The weighted average takes into account not just the capacity factor of the wind farms but also the size of each.)
Update – late 2016Not included in the calculations above was the Hornsdale Wind Farm and the second stage of Waterloo Wind farm.
In late 2016 the first stage of Hornsdale was completed and operating, with an installed capacity of 100MW. The second stage, another 100MW, was under construction and the third stage, 109MW, was contracted.
The second stage of Waterloo Wind Farm, 18MW, was operating.
Reality checkIn a time when climate change and ocean acidification are obviously going to be disastrous for the planet and consequently the reduction of greenhouse emissions should be high on everyone's agendas my impression is that most Australians don't care much; at least not enough to try to do anything about the problem. Also, most people in the Mid North seem to me to be unaware of the exemplary nature of the renewable energy developments in their region.
Unlike most of the residents of the Mid North, who are largely apathetic about climate change and wind farms, the people of Snowtown are proud of their wind farm and are very pleased to make it a positive for their town.
They deserve to be proud of themselves; the world needs more people like them.
|The completed Snowtown Wind Farm, first and second stages; 2014/06/11|
"A wind turbine operating for three hours reduces CO2 emissions as much as taking one car off the roads for a year."
"A wind turbine generates as much emissions-free electricity as about 2000 typical roof-top solar PV installations."
"Up to February 2014 Port Pirie, the only city in Mid North SA, had a total of 6MW of solar installations. These would generate about as much emissions-free electricity as one wind turbine."
The above statements apply to utility scale wind turbines (about 3 MW) operating in mainland Australia including in SA's Mid North at the average capacity factor of 35% seen in the National Electricity Market. The abatement figures are based on a report by Sinclair Knight Merz.
Similar, simple but true, statements are combined with turbine images on another page.
A wonderful achievement|
The wind farms