Wind turbines at the Snowtown Facility.

Any story regarding the expansion and encouragement of renewables to promote sustainable development is a good story in our book, and we’re impressed by the Clean Energy Council policy manager’s statement, “If South Australia was a nation, it would be second only to Denmark [in renewables].” South Australia is a state in the middle of the southern coast of the country, about a hundred square miles larger than the US state of Texas, so it’s great to hear that such a large area relies so much on innovation. Kathy Marks reports for the Guardian:

In a state that leads the country – in fact, much of the world – in producing electricity from renewable sources, Snowtown is wind central. The first stage of a $660m, 270-megawatt farm, with 47 turbines, opened in 2008, 5km west of the town; the second, adding another 90 turbines, came on stream in 2014.

Developed by New Zealand’s Trustpower, South Australia’s biggest wind facility – and Australia’s second biggest – created hundreds of construction jobs and 21 permanent positions.

“They’ve taken people off the farms and out of the unemployment queues. They’re investing in Snowtown’s schools and sporting clubs,” says Ian Hunter, the state’s ebullient climate change minister. “They’re underpinning the economy of a place that was really doing it tough.”

Altogether, South Australia has 16 wind farms, which generated just over a third of the state’s electricity in 2014–15; solar provided another 7%. The combined figure is set to climb past half this year, well ahead of the government’s 2025 target date. “If South Australia was a nation,” observes Alicia Webb, policy manager for the Clean Energy Council, the industry’s peak body, “it would be second only to Denmark.”

Progressive policies have placed the state in the vanguard of change for much of its history, notes Hunter. “We don’t have the natural environmental advantages of the eastern states, the big water catchments and all the arable land,” he says. “So we’ve always had to be incredibly innovative. Innovation is in our blood.”

Holden’s Elizabeth plant will close next year, and South Australia’s two remaining coal-fired power stations, at Port Augusta, are also due to shut imminently, with the Leigh Creek mine which supplies them already shuttered since November. The withering of these traditional industries, in a state with Australia’s highest unemployment rate (7.2%), has given extra impetus to the move to a modern, low-carbon economy.

Political leaders, though, recognised the opportunities, as well as the challenges, long ago. In 2007, Mike Rann’s SA Labor government was the first in Australia to legislate emissions reduction and renewable energy targets. It was also the first to establish a feed-in tariff for rooftop solar (now installed on 28% of homes), and dedicated planning guidelines for wind farms: part of a policy and regulatory framework which has helped the state attract $6.6bn of clean-energy investment, 40% of it into regional areas.

The government of Jay Weatherill, Rann’s equally zealous successor, has two new goals: $10bn of clean-tech investment by 2025 and zero net emissions by 2050. Such explicit objectives appeal to investors, “sending a strong signal that that’s the direction we’re heading in”, says Frank Jotzo, director of the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at the Australian National University, and one of three experts who advised the state on its new climate change strategy.

Read the remainder of the original article here.