Wise words on wind energy

Izzie Pope took the stage after the premier, the minister, the deputy mayor and the chief operating officer. No disrespect to the heavy hitters, but it was the Year 12 student who delivered a beautifully considered speech to the hundreds in attendance at the Ararat Wind Farm Bring on the Blades celebration. A sound bite: “When the 46th anniversary of Earth Day was celebrated globally this year, Generation Z looked on in mild confusion, because we don’t need a special day for considering our environmental impact … every day is a day for sustainable living.”
The bash, which coincided with World Wind Day, took place on a relatively still morning at Ararat’s Kokoda Park. For Blade #1, it was a rest stop on the last leg of a long journey from its manufacture in Brazil, a voyage to Portland and finally a long-wide-load drive to its waiting hard stand at Ararat Wind Farm, where it will spin the rest of its days with 224 compatriots, scooping up the wind riches on the Great Dividing Range. The $450 million project is now in its busiest construction phase, with some 165 new jobs on the site as transmission lines are laid, turbine towers are raised and blades and nacelles added to create the 240MW farm.

 

The first Ararat Wind Farm blade has a rest stop before being transported on to the heights on the horizon.

With the 50m-long blade posing like an industrial sculpture beside the park, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and his government’s Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change Lily D’Ambrosio joined Ararat deputy mayor Gary Hull onstage. The premier and his minister had some significant renewable energy policy announcements to share. After they’d spoken, RES COO and MC for the morning Matt Rebbeck introduced Ararat College’s Izzie Pope, saying: “These projects are all about the future … RES and the project owners have been working very closely with the local schools to make sure that this project brings as many benefits to the local children as possible.”

And then Izzie took it away.

“A generation with a sustainable mindset will surely look for a sustainable options in all things … specialist jobs will begin to emerge ... opening up new opportunities for workers of all ages,” she said. “We can also look forward to a focus on greener innovations, as the world’s inventors have their attention drawn to the market value of sustainable alternatives.”

The speeches wrapped up with presentations of time capsules from Ararat primary and secondary schools, and then it was time to line up to sign Blade #1 and tuck into the Lions Club sausage sizzle. Local landowner and schoolteacher Megan Shea was there with her husband Tim and sons Henry, 11, and Wilbur, 8 (daughter Annie was doing work experience on the day) and praised wind-farm developer RES’s community commitment for the past eight years or so, including sponsoring local sports teams and the pony club.

 

Tim and Megan Shea with sons Henry (left) and Wilbur in Kokoda Park for the blade celebration.

The Sheas’ property will host six turbines, which Megan explained is “a big relief for us … being in drought for 10 to 12 years ... it’s going to be nice for us to have a little bit of income … it’s going to take a little bit of pressure off the farm.” Putting on her schoolteacher hat, Shea said that Ararat Wind Farm staff have come to her school numerous times to talk to maths and physics seniors, “getting them into job pathways like engineering”, as well as meeting with VCAL and technology students. “We had some of our VCAL students here looking at the blade and its design and what it’s made of,” she added.

And then it was time for the turbine to make the last leg of its journey up to the wind-farm site. By next month, it will be atop a turbine. Izzie Pope has the last word: “The wind turbines going up around us only serve to make this concrete in our mind: Sustainability is of utmost importance.”
Images and videos: Jane Nicholls