DEMONSTRATION WIND TURBINE SITE

 

 

The Demonstration Wind Turbine Site is a flat, coastal area of land with an electrical wind turbine, wind monitoring tower (with anemometer) and monitoring hut. The site was established by the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV) and Victorian Solar Energy Council (VSEC) in 1987 to test the viability of wind as a source of power for the state electricity grid. The wind turbine, wind monitoring tower and monitoring hut all played a part in the demonstration. 

The Demonstration Wind Turbine Site is of historical significance to the State of Victoria. It satisfies the following criterion for inclusion in the Victorian Heritage Register:
Criterion A
Importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria’s cultural history.
Criterion B
Possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Victoria’s cultural history.

 

The Demonstration Wind Turbine Site is historically significant for its association with the development of renewable energy in the late twentieth century. It was established as a collaborative project between the SECV and VSEC to demonstrate the potential of wind energy to feed power to the state electricity grid. It was an important experiment in the viability of wind-powered electricity in Victoria. The site retains several features that enable its purpose and operation to be well understood. It is emblematic of the Victorian Government’s emerging commitment to renewable energy in the 1980s, and growing public concerns about the long-term viability of electricity derived from fossil fuels. Despite being established as a demonstration project, the turbine continued to feed electricity into the grid until 2012. It was an important precursor of Victoria’s wind power industry, which by the early 2000s had evolved into large-scale wind farms.

 

The Demonstration Wind Turbine Site is significant as a rare surviving example of a place that can demonstrate the growing interest in renewable energy sources in the latter decades of the twentieth century.  It is a substantial surviving remnant of the phase. There are no known other surviving comparable places or objects in Victoria that enable this phase of exploration and development of sources of renewable energy to be demonstrated.