Conservationists horrified as serrated wind turbine blades arrive at Ravenshoe

Conservationists are calling on the owners of a Tablelands wind farm being built now to use technology to mitigate bird and bat deaths, after seeing serrated turbine blades arriving in town.

TABLELANDS conservationists are horrified that the $370m Kaban wind farm will have serrated blades on its 28 turbines.

A spokeswoman for French renewable energy giant Neoen, which owns the wind farm under construction near Ravenshoe, confirmed the blades were serrated.

“The blades currently being installed at Kaban have serrations on the back side of the blade to minimise noise for the benefit of the local community and surrounding fauna,” she said.

A serrated turbine blade. Picture: Rainforest Reserves Australia member Carolyn Emms.

Rainforest Reserves Australia spokeswoman Carolyn Emms called on the company to spend money on technology such as Indetiflight that could mitigate against bird and bat deaths.

“At Kaban, sadly, these start-of-the-art technologies will not be employed,” she said.

“Simply monitoring bird and bat deaths is not enough.

“The proponent should redirect some of their profit toward deploying appropriate technology to prevent bird and bat deaths.”

She said as well as birds and bats being killed from turbines spinning at 300km/h, bats died from barotrauma – the shifting pressure around wind turbines.

Ms Emms said birds and bats would also die from impact with the newly-installed electrical power lines around the development.

Huge wind turbine blades each 79m long are unloaded from the cargo ship Chipol Changjiang at the Port of Cairns, before being transported by road to the Kaban Green Power Hub near Ravenshoe. Picture: Brendan Radke

Construction work is expected to continue to March 2023 and the project is expected to

generate enough electricity to power 100,000 homes once completed, with a life of at least 30 years.

The Kaban wind turbines will be 228m high.

At one point, Neoen sought finance from the federal government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) and won support from the NAIF board, before Federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt intervened to veto the loan.

A 90-tonne tower section for the Kaban Wind Farm near Ravenshoe is lifted off a ship in the Port of Cairns. Picture: Ports North

The state government’s utility CleanCo stepped in to support the project by signing a 15-year offtake deal to purchase 100 per cent of the output from the wind farm.

The wind turbines are currently being transported as oversized loads from Cairns to Ravenshoe between 2.30am and 4am.

Meanwhile, the proposed Chalumbin wind farm, 15km from Ravenshoe, has hit a stumbling block with the state government finding fault with its application.

The company Epuron has until May to provide more information.

Originally published as Conservationists horrified as serrated wind turbine blades arrive at Ravenshoe