Windmills for your roof under overhaul of NSW planning laws

• By political writer Linda Simalis
• From: The Sunday Telegraph
• April 18, 2010 12:00AM

NSW planning laws are set to be overhauled to allow homeowners to have windmils on their roofs. Source: Bloomberg

HOUSEHOLDERS will be allowed to build wind turbines on the roofs of suburban homes to generate green electricity under a sweeping overhaul of NSW planning laws.

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal the State Government is proposing to allow small windmills with a generating capacity of 10kW or less to be erected in residential areas, adding to solar panels as an option for domestic power generation.

A height limit of 3m above the roof line will be imposed and turbines will have to be at least 25m from neighbouring properties.

As with solar panels, home owners will be able to sell surplus power they generate to the electricity grid, protecting them from skyrocketing power prices.

Under the plan, families intending to install a wind turbine would lodge a 10-day complying development application with the local council.

Planning Minister Tony Kelly said strict noise and location controls would ensure neighbourhoods were not turned into "turbine jungles".

Mr Kelly said the amendments to the laws, which go on public exhibition today, would also make it more beneficial for families to install their own solar-power system.

Making it easier for property owners to install wind and solar systems would turn suburbs and rural areas into "renewable-energy harvesting areas with no, or minimal, environmental and local amenity impacts", he said.

Present laws ban domestic wind turbines in residential areas.

Under the proposed changes, wind turbines would be restricted to 10kW in residential zones and 60kW in rural and industrial areas.

Turbines near neighbouring dwellings would be have to meet stringent operational noise limits.

Mr Kelly said that although modern domestic-use wind turbines were generally quiet, the noise restrictions would ensure neighbours were not adversely affected.

Depending on the type of turbine being installed, a distance of up to 200m from the nearest property could also be imposed to further guard against noise impacts, he said.

Under the proposed changes, solar installation will also become a 10-day complying development.

The solar energy feed-in system, introduced in January, allows households to earn 60c for each kilowatt-hour of electricity produced.

The Government estimates that individual households could earn an average of $1500 by selling surplus energy to the feed-in system.

A formal review of the effectiveness of the scheme will be undertaken in July.

Energy Minister John Robertson said the proposal was an Australian first, allowing households to feed both wind and solar energy into the grid in return for an income.

A discussion paper on the proposal, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, shows the Government intends to allow turbines to be located at least 25m from neighbouring properties.

In the US, small-scale residential wind turbines are allowed in parts of New York.

"For example, a five-storey affordable housing apartment building in the South Bronx, in New York, has deployed 10 1kW wind turbines to supplement the facility's conventional power usage in the building's hallways, elevators and other common areas," the paper states.Lobbecke's view: Page 106