The GED (section 25 of the Act) is the cornerstone of the Act. It requires people who are engaging in any activity that may give rise to risks of harm to human health or the environment from pollution or waste to minimise those risks, so far as reasonably practicable. This requires those risks to be eliminated so far as reasonably practicable, or if that is not possible, to be reduced so far as reasonably practicable. 

The Act also prohibits the emission of unreasonable noise. Section 166 of the Act imposes an obligation on any individual not to emit unreasonable noise or permit an unreasonable noise to be emitted. This applies to the emission of noise from any place or premises that is not a residential premises. 

Unreasonable noise has a specific definition in section 3(1) of the Act and includes prescribed unreasonable noise. In addition to prescribed unreasonable noise, noise is assessed as being unreasonable based on its characteristics and the circumstances in which it is emitted as set out in section 3(1)(a)(i)-(v) of the Act. 

The obligations to comply with the GED and avoid unreasonable noise emissions apply to WEFs. To provide greater certainty to the industry, Division 5 of Part 5.3 of the Regulations was introduced to set out what WEF operators must do to demonstrate compliance with noise emission duties under the Act.

Regulation 131H prescribes wind turbine noise as unreasonable noise if it exceeds the noise limit for the WEF or, if the noise is assessed at an alternative monitoring point, the applicable alternative monitoring point criterion.

For greater clarity on how to comply with the GED, an Act compliance note³  was included in regulations 131C and 131CA(1). These regulations set out how operators of WEFs must comply with the GED under s.25(1) of the Act with respect to wind turbine noise. Specifically, to comply with the GED, operators of WEFs must ensure that wind turbine noise complies with the noise limits for that facility and must take all applicable actions set out in Division 5 of Part 5.3 of the Regulations to manage and review the wind turbine noise.

Footnotes