Neighbour agreements will be among the key strategies for the successful spread of wind farms in regional parts of NSW, according to a dual-purpose Merino grazier at Crookwell.
Dimity Taylor, her husband, Hugh Klem, and their three children live next to the Gullen Range Wind Farm near Crookwell.
They have lived within two kilometres of wind turbines for about 12 years. Ms Taylor is also a volunteer director on not-for-profit organisation working in the renewables field, RE-Alliance.
While Ms Taylor does not receive any financial assistance from Gullen Range, she said the proposed wind farm on the other side of Crookwell was offering neighbourly payments of about $60,000 a year.
"A lot of the modern renewable projects have neighbour agreements, but this (the Gullen Range wind farm) is a bit of an old-school one, and there are no neighbour agreements," Ms Taylor said.
"There's a wind farm being proposed on the other side of Crookwell at the moment.
"Which is really game-changing money. You can make such different plans and have different aspirations with that kind of guaranteed income, especially when you know it's guaranteed for decades.
"It's every year for the life of the project, which is decades."
It was during the construction of the Gullen Range project that Ms Taylor and her partner rented a small holding nearby to the construction site.
"All the construction trucks would come by, and then we bought a small block, and that was about 1.2km from the nearest turbine," she said.
"Then we bought another place, and it was maybe 1.9km away. Since then, we've moved again, and our current house is 1.2km from the closest turbine. I think there are 10 turbines within two kilometres from our house."
She runs about 1500 dual-purpose Merinos on 240 hectares.
Apart from the neighbour agreements providing smallholders with income support, the renewable energy generators give the district the potential for drought-proof income, Ms Taylor says.
She said the fixed payments from hosting turbines offered a source of income that was entirely independent of rainfall or commodity prices, providing financial stability during drought periods.
The infrastructure also provided improved property access, as the developers installed internal access tracks for maintenance, which could be used by the landholder to enhance stock management and create firebreaks for bushfire safety.
She said there was anecdotal evidence the livestock quickly adapted to the turbines and panels, and the sheep and cattle continued to graze right up to the base of the turbines, meaning the land remained productive.
Living within 1200 metres of a turbine has no ill effects, Ms Taylor said.
"I certainly have no sense of the subsonic noise," she said.
"Very occasionally, we hear some noise. I don't find it an annoying noise at all.
"To me, it actually kind of sounds like you're listening to the ocean."
Another issue, which is seemingly resolving itself, is the impact of the wind farms on property values.
"It's really positive that the land values don't seem to have been affected," she said.
"I am not aware of a single property that's being sold or planned to be sold that's been impacted price-wise by having, by being next to a wind farm.
"I'm aware of six or eight properties that have sold houses well and truly within the 2km limit, the 2km radius of the wind farm, and they are selling for the same unbelievable increases in land prices as every other property around the area.
"It hasn't impacted our insurance premiums at all, and I'm not aware of it having impacted anybody's insurance premiums that live anywhere near the wind farm."
She said the positives of living next to or near a wind farm generally fall into three main categories: financial/economic, community and practical/agricultural.
For property owners who host turbines, substations, or other infrastructure, the primary benefit is significant lease income, helping to diversify the farm's finances, including for neighbouring properties.
She said there was also increased temporary and permanent jobs locally during the construction and ongoing operation of the wind farms, boosting local spending on accommodation and other local businesses.
This piece was published in The Land on 14 January, titled 'Winds of wealth: how $60k neighbour payments are rebranding renewables.'
Image credit: The New Joneses.