Energy myths blowing in wind
Stock Journal,
IN RESPONSE to Dave Clarke, Crystal Brook (Stock Journal, July 24), the reality is that wind power is not a standalone source of power.

The efficiency of wind farms is at best about 38 per cent, therefore they must have base-load back up.

They are also highly subsidised by taxpayers under the Renewable Energy Target scheme in the form of Renewable Energy Credits.

On Tuesday, July 22, newspaper columnist Terry McCrann wrote: "On Monday (July 21), all the wind farms in southern Australia, all the hundreds of turbines scattered across SA, Vic, NSW and Tas, altogether produced exactly zero - nothing, nada, zip, zilch - power for two hours smack in the middle of the day.

Indeed, right through most of the working day - from 11am in the morning until after 8pm that night - the total output of all the wind farms was effectively zero for that entire period.

All those turbines (sic) have an aggregate capacity (sic) of nearly 3000 megawatts - that's theoretically equal to two large coal-fired power stations.

But over those nine hours, they pumped out at most just 120 megawatts, barely 4 per cent of their capacity, and for most of the time much less even than that ... bad luck if you were in an operating theatre."

Terry McCrann goes on to explain the reality of when the wind doesn't blow, the power doesn't flow, consequently you've got to keep real power stations operating, so they can plug the gap when wind fails. He uses this analogy: "A parallel example would be owning a car that you knew would just stop every now and then and not go for an hour or two or four.

But that's OK because you've got another one, a normal one, ready to take its place, idling in the garage".

Mr Clarke confirms that SA has 1475mgW of installed wind capacity and we produce around 50pc of Australia's wind power.

SA households and businesses are certainly not celebrating that we also have the highest power prices in the world - particularly those people who cannot afford solar panels to reduce their energy costs.

Under the RET, energy retailers are forced to take on wind power at prices which are about four times the cost of conventional gas or coalfired power and these higher costs are added directly to power bills.

Effectively the RET acts as a tax on consumers.

Right now the grid can just handle the sort of disruption reflected in the wind not blowing. But if we continue to increase this highly government subsidised, intermittent form of energy, we will certainly face increased costs and blackouts.

Tania Stock, Heartland Farmers Association.