As many readers will know from first hand experience the NSW South Coast is a windy place - but as that old real estate adage puts it - 'no wind - no view'. Now it's 'no wind - no dollars'.

Jokes aside, the NSW South Coast offers first class wind conditions for wind developers with the added benefit of numerous power loads distributed across a landscape of mixed human activity.

And it is the existing human activities that are the central issue facing the South Coast wind energy industry.

From the earliest days of European settlement, farmhouses have spread across the land as multiple generations of families needed new housing. Then in the 20th century, farmers were given access to new capital via local council regulations that permitted 1-5 acre blocks to be sold off every 1-5 years depending on how generous your local council was.

The result today, is throughout the entire South Coast there in an intense patchwork of rural residential blocks where the land has been cleared. And even then as you go up into the mountainous hinterland there are substantial residential populations spread across ridgelines offering many excellent wind exposures.

The immediate consequence of this is that wind farm developers will be working hard to find locations suitable for building large-scale wind farms. For these wind farmers industrializing the production of wind energy via an economy of scale strategy is central to their business model.

For ABC Wind, developing a solution appropriate to the local land use is central to our technology and business strategy.

Overview of ABC Wind
With offices in the old Gerringong Town Hall, ABC Wind is open for business and actively targeting sales development, while developing a wind energy architecture that is appropriate in scale and cost for our target market.

We are in the process of signing agreements with local and international companies who are seeking to enter the south coast wind energy market.

These include turbine suppliers, wind engineers and plant and equipment financing.

ABC Wind is also meeting with potential wind farm investors and other parties across the south coast - such as farmers, superannuation funds, banks, energy utilities and local councils.

Our short term goal has been to meet with as many stakeholders as possible to assess the lay of the land, while demonstrating that we have a technology and financial solution for wind farm development that is scaleable and profitable.

We have started all the initial steps of establishing ABC Wind as a new business such as incorporation, trademark registration and raising capital.

Our next step is to conduct a detailed wind energy analysis across the region while holding investor seminars for potential stakeholders.

A key issue is getting local and state government fully onboard doing the things they have to do. Such as detailed zoning and developing noise standards for turbines. While the interest of the Southern Council Group in the wind energy is to be commended, the core objective of local councils should be to facilities the development of many wind farms and not just one or two wind farms that barely put a dent in our energy budget.

With this in mind I am in the process of establishing the South Coast Wind Energy Industry Association, and we are keen to talk with all potential stakeholders and get the regulatory environment in place as soon as possible.

My own personal background is publisher of the SpaceDaily.com network, which focuses on trade media news for the global technology industries such as space technology applications, environmental and energy technologies. In addition, I am a partner in a solar energy home and commercial installation business - ABC Solar - that operates in Los Angeles under local management.

The ABC Wind Architecture
ABC Wind is targeting small-scale wind farms starting with installations from 30 kilowatts through to 10 megawatts.

Farms will be small in scale integrating with the local rural land use in an appropriate and complimentary manner.

By building smaller farms our key business objective is to reduce the cost, the risk and the timescales associated with developing wind farms to ensure that we can bring clean green energy to the marketplace sooner rather than later.

A variety of ownership models can be used to underwrite these projects ranging from local energy coops, single farm ownership, local councils, and distributed commercial ownership where one or two major investors take a core stake in multiple projects, while still enabling local ownership to be enhanced.

While the purpose of local ownership is to spread the love around, the business reason for doing such is to unlock the vast capital tied up in family farms across the region.

With low capital returns from dairy and cattle, and only limited scope for added value agriculture, wind and water harvesting are among the only real options available for farmers to diversify their revenue streams.

Moreover the scope for farmers to increase their land holdings is also extremely limited due to the high cost of coastal farm lands - this is not because of land speculators looking to cash in on land development, but rather it is wealthy people from the city buying 100-200 acres farms as rural retreats.

The proposed Federal government taxation reforms in this area might change this, as hobby farmers find their taxation arrangements under siege from governments looking to raise as much tax as they can in the coming years.

However, this may benefit ABC Wind as hobby farmers will be looking for real business activities that be conducted on their properties. This will help maintain these taxation arrangements that are central to many property owners being able to afford owning these properties.

On the engineering side, we are evaluating various wind turbine suppliers who have systems designed specifically for the small to medium scale wind farms of two - ten turbines that generate up to 10 megawatts.

On the connection side an extensive overlay of 11KV power line distribution is making our job easier when it comes to selling the power back to the grid.

Starting with an initial rollout of 1-3 megawatts and using smaller - medium size turbines we can reduce the capital and installation costs. While working with local and state planners to streamline approval processes.

The core objective of ABC Wind is to make our wind farm architecture a turnkey solution that can be rolled out across the South Coast quickly and efficiently.

This will ensure that the wind energy industry can meet the key objectives of government to reduce CO2 emissions and create jobs. All the while helping to underpin a new generation of family farmers who are integral to the south coast lifestyle and culture that so many people strongly believe should be maintained and supported. But let's try to do it in a way that is profitable and not a burden to the taxpayers.

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