BONDO State Forest could be home to up to 154 wind turbines as part of a wind farm project being investigated by international renewable energy company Neoen.
An artists recreation of how the turbines might look from the Tumut lookout was on display at last Wednesday’s community information session held at Neoen’s Tumut office on Fitzroy Street.
Neoen state leader NSW Emily Walker said the current provisional layout is subject to change and will evolve as ongoing surveys of the area continue.
“There are environmental and heritage surveys that are still ongoing, and will be for another year or so,” she said.
“The layout will evolve as we get and account for the results of those flora, fauna, and heritage surveys, which include bat and bird monitoring.”
In addition to monitoring flora and fauna, Neoen teams are installing wind monitoring masts in order to further refine the layout of turbines.
“The current layout is based on currently held wind data and topography,” Ms Walker said.
“We really need to understand the wind data across the site itself to ensure that we’re proposing turbines in appropriately windy locations.”
Throughout the investigation stages Neoen are running a strong community engagement campaign, with community members welcome to attend its pop-up office at 45 Fitzroy Street, open Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
All of the information from last week’s public information session is available at the office, as are staff who can answer any questions about the project.
“We had reasonably good attendance at last week’s information session,” Ms Walker said.
While the session was advertised, Ms Walker said most attendees were people who reside nearby to proposed turbine locations, who had all been contacted directly about the event.
“We’ve been in touch with just about everyone who lives up to about 8km from a turbine,” she said.
“Most people who came out to the session have a vested interest, whether because they live quite near the project, or they think they may see a turbine from their property, and others came because they were just interested.
“Overwhelmingly for this project the community sentiment has been neutral to positive, based on the feedback we’ve heard.”
Neoen staff will be running visual impact assessments at sites which could potentially have a view of turbines, and property owners will have the chance to see how their own views might be effected.
“We have to assess the level of impact at different ‘receptors’, or locations which could have a view of the windfarm and infrastructure,” Ms Walker said.
“We have landscape and visual impact experts take photos from those locations, towards the proposed project, and then put together mock-ups of what the turbines might look like from different viewpoints.
“We try to get as many of those together as possible, and we always show them to property owners beforehand.”
Neoen will also contribute to a community benefit sharing program throughout the duration of the wind farm’s operation.
Neoen has recently begun discussions with councils about how it might distribute financial benefits once the project is operating, as well as taking feedback and suggestions from visitors at the information session.
It is expected Neoen will submit a Development Application in Q3 2026, and Ms Walker said they would hope to have approval before the end of 2027, and to begin construction in early 2029.
