Wind farms, including the Rye Park Wind Farm, offer several strategic and long term benefits. In addition to specific local and environmental benefits, wind farms:
- reduce greenhouse gas emissions, helping to move towards cleaner electricity generation and reduce the impact of climate change in a carbon-constrained environment
- supply renewable energy that would assist electricity retailers to fulfil their obligations under prescribed state and federal renewable energy targets, and would otherwise lead to increased burning of fossil fuels
- provide additional generation capacity into the NSW grid that would assist in meeting load growth and result in a clean, reliable generation mix
- provide an opportunity for regional investment as the renewable energy sector grows in the Southern Tablelands
The Rye Park Wind Farm offers several specific benefits to the environment and local community:
- economic benefits to the local community through the direct provision of local jobs and use of local services in construction and operation phases
- ongoing landowner payments and financial contributions to the local community being re-injected in the local community
- production of around 766,500 Megawatt-hours in a typical year (based on a typical capacity factor of 35%, assuming 100 turbines at 2.5 Megawatts each)
- this is enough clean, renewable energy, enough for the average consumption of around 90,000 homes
- this in turn will lead to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions through the avoidance of around 730,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year from coal fired power stations, the equivalent of removing 170,000 cars from our roads.
The Environmental Assessment will contain detailed project justification including greenhouse gas abatement derived from the online NSW Wind Farm Greenhouse Gas Saving Tool developed by MMA Consultants for the DECCW Wind Precincts initiative.