China’s Guohua Energy Investment Co. has agreed to buy 75% stakes in two of Australia’s biggest wind farms for A$88.6 million, placing a bet on the country’s renewable energy sector just weeks after controversial carbon tax legislation was passed by parliament.

Bloomberg News
Guohua, a unit of China’s state-owned coal giant Shenhua Group, is acquiring interests in the 65-megawatt Bluff Point and 75-megawatt Studland Bay wind farms in northwest Tasmania state from renewable energy producer Hydro Tasmania.

Australia has up to now been a laggard in using renewable energy use compared to other developed countries, such as Spain and Germany, as investors struggled to turn a profit on early projects that were competing for customers with generators of electricity produced from burning cheaply available thermal coal.

At the end of the 2008-2009 financial year, the last complete data available from the Australian government, renewable energy accounted for around 7% of total electricity generation in the country. Of this, wind energy contributed 1.5% to total power output.

However, this is set to increase sharply as Australia’s government has set a target of having 20% of electricity supply coming from renewable energy sources like wind power by 2020. To achieve this goal, it has introduced policies that mandate electricity retailers to buy a proportion of their sales from renewable energy sources.

At the same time, Australia is also preparing to impose a tax on some of the country’s biggest coal producers and users in an effort to cut pollution. The levy will be charged at a fixed price of 23 Australian dollars (US$23.50) per carbon ton from the country’s top 500 polluters starting July 2012.

In a statement Thursday, Hydro Tasmania small wind turbines said the deal with Guohua values the two wind farms at Woolnorth at A$282 million. The company will retain the remaining 25% interests in both projects.

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