The Victorian Government will develop a new suite of tools and guidelines to ensure native wildlife are not harmed by renewable energy projects.
By July 2024, the government will release new statewide maps that identify key habitat areas for native wildlife which will help renewable energy developers and planners to build renewable energy in areas that will have the least impact on wildlife.
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Program funding will contribute to research projects and spatial analysis to identify risks and fill critical knowledge gaps on the best approaches to reducing any adverse environmental impacts from wind farms.
The news was welcomed by Clean Energy Council director of energy generation and storage Dr Nicholas Aberle.
“We are pleased that the Victorian government has committed to an important program of work to address the uncertainty that has affected the wind industry in recent years,” Dr Aberle said.
“A lack of policy direction to assess and mitigate risks to biodiversity has contributed to significant delays in project assessment, especially for wind farms.”
No wind farms were approved in Victoria during 2023, due in large part to systemic ambiguity within government departments about these risks and how these can be appropriately avoided, mitigated and managed.
In 2023, high-profile planning recommendations at the Willatook wind farm project with regard to bird and bat guidelines exacerbated confusion about how renewable energy project proposals are assessed, creating a chilling effect on the investment environment in Victoria.
“Wind farms do have some environmental impacts, but these are well down the list of threats to any species or ecosystem, when compared to other issues, including feral cat and fox predation and wetland degradation, among others,” Dr Aberle said.
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“By contrast, climate change is one of the most significant and complex threats to biodiversity, which is precisely what renewable energy is uniquely placed to address.
“Better knowledge of species most at risk will give industry and government departments the certainty needed to approve and build wind farms with sound mitigation and management practices.”
