A new study has found communities in the NSW Southern Tablelands are overwhelmingly supportive of wind farm projects to combat global warming.

The survey of 300 people in the Goulburn – Crookwell – Yass areas found 89 per cent of local residents were in favour of wind farms being developed in the Southern Tablelands, including 51 per cent who were strongly in favour, Epuron Executive Director Andrew Durran said today.

Mr Durran said the region includes an existing wind farm at Crookwell and contains sites for the majority of proposed wind farms in NSW.

“What we have found is an overwhelming majority of people - 96 per cent - view wind energy favourably, particularly in the face of widespread concern about the threat of global warming,” Mr Durran said.

“Furthermore, 83 per cent of people agree they would be happy to see a wind farm built on farm land near where they live.  In fact, 71 per cent of people favoured a wind farm located just 1km from their home.”

Mr Durran said NSW is the best location in Australia for wind energy, with excellent wind speeds, a strong transmission system, high base-load energy prices and the largest energy demand in the country.

Epuron has a wind monitoring network across NSW on sites identified for their wind farm development potential. These monitoring sites show excellent wind speeds in NSW, with wind speeds of up to 9m/s at hub height.

“This is an excellent resource on a world-wide basis, better than most Victorian wind farm sites and comparable with sites found in Tasmania and South Australia,” Mr Durran said.

Mr Durran said other key findings from the study included:

• 91 per cent agree we need to use wind power as a source of clean energy, even if it means changing the appearance of some landscapes
• 67 per cent of people who had seen a wind farm found them to be visually appealing (only 15 per cent did not)
• 90 per cent of people had seen a wind farm
• 92 per cent agree Australia should be investing more in wind energy

REARK Research undertook the survey by phoning 300 randomly selected residents in the Southern Tablelands.

Epuron is a leading NSW renewable energy developer with wind power projects under active development equating to 7–8% of NSW’s energy demand and a capital investment in regional NSW of approx $4.2 billion.