Spanish energy giant and renewable energy developer Iberdrola has lobbed its second New South Wales (NSW) plantation wind project into the federal EPBC queue, asking for environmental approval for 21 turbines to be erected in a state forest.
The Four Mile Creek project will have a capacity of 158 megawatts (MW) within the Canobolas state forest, south-west of Orange, the smallest of the five projects solicited by the state’s Forestry Corporation in 2023.
Iberdrola referred its 248 MW Mullion Creek project to the EPBC, itself 20km north of Orange, a week earlier.
Forestry Corp says its softwood plantations are good locations for wind power given they’re monocultures with little native vegetation and because the trees will be cut down eventually anyway.
“This forestry land use has resulted in a highly modified and degraded ecological condition across the majority of the site. Native vegetation is limited and fragmented, occurring mainly as small grassy forest patches and riparian remnants,” the EPBC referral says.
