Modification 2 Decentralised BESS

I object to this development for the following reasons:
1. The Coppabella Hills, which are an iconic and loved feature of the local area, will be totally and permanently disfigured if wind turbines are constructed on them. Because of their steep topography and being relatively treeless, there is a real risk of a great deal of erosion with soil being washed into and polluting local creeks and rivers. This will be brought about by the extensive earthworks which will be required to construct the hardstands and switch back access roads which can be from 10m. to 30m. wide.
2. The Coppabellas height and steep topography will also bring about a restriction on the height of the turbines, much less than other wind turbines proposed for neighbouring sites, thus producing in the scheme of things, a relatively useless volume of energy.
3. Connection to the electricity grid. It has been known for several years that the existing 99M transmission line will have to be upgraded to accommodate the Coppabella wind turbine’s output along with a costly upgrade of the Yass Sub Station. Transgrid have not made any announcement that these upgrades are in the pipeline, not publicly anyhow.
So I feel this proposed development is a destructive and costly waste of time and should not be allowed to happen

We do not want this fire risk. We do not want the erosion on the steep hills. We do not want the rural area to become an industrial area. It is NOT appropriate.

My husband and I have been landowners and primary producers in the locality of Bowning and Binalong for over 42years. We would like to lodge our objection to the modification of the Coppabella Wind Farm which seeks to include decentralised BESS units at turbine locations within the project. The addition of six BESS containers per turbine is an unacceptable fire risk and is spreading the risk across the project site. This area has a significant history of fires (caused by both lightning and human activity) and this risk will be seriously magnified by the placement of multiple decentralised BESS units. There are serious risks from thermal runaway, chemical leaks into watershed river systems, and explosions from such units. The terrain is difficult for ground based firefighting and the presence of turbines will impede aerial fire fighting support. In addition, turbines have a propensity to interfere with weather radar and multiple communication systems compounding the risk to residents and livestock. I am attaching the report provided to YVC by Mr. Michael Gray. There is a cumulative impact from multiple renewable energy projects either operational, approved or proposed in the Yass Valley which present an unfair burden and risk to our lives and livelihoods.
Sincerely Pamela Sheppard

Please see my submission attached.

Please see my attached submission

For the attention of the Planning Secretary Ms Kiersten Fishburn & assessing officers for the modification 2 ‘Coppabella’ Decentralised BESS formally known as Yass Valley Wind Farm - 75 turbines with the proposal to add banks of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) & associated infrastructure

11th December , 2025

Dear Ms Fishburn,
Please consider this proposal for what it is. A desperate and risky reach to make an unviable project claw cash for its investors to the detriment of our community. It poses a direct threat to our ability to protect our lives and homes from serious bushfire. It is a Sydney Harbour bridge length too far to describe banks and banks of shipping container size industrial batteries perched on ridge tops and within full view of clusters of farm houses as a ‘mere modification’. It’s an entirely different proposition! I implore you to confidently refuse it on this basis so that good planning outcomes and a fair go for rural residents is upheld.

This ‘modification’ is a serious deviation from the original proposal that significantly changes the impact and risks to the local residents of Bookham and Binalong and wider community of Yass Valley and Hilltops from the proposed industrialisation of notoriously bushfire prone land to now include hazardous battery storage.

The memory of speed and fury of The Cobbler Road Fire of 2013 that razed 14,000 hectares, travelling 35 kilometres in just six hours. The blaze devastated the farming and natural landscape, killing 15,000 head of sheep and horses and severely impacting the well being of our farmers - the most resilient people on the planet - but this was a shocker for everyone it touched - bringing volunteers such as BlazeAid to our community. As one of my first duties as a local government councillor, I found myself serving dinner to farmers and volunteer fence builders in the Bookham hall with my kids wide eyed at the sweat and ash smeared faces. It is forever burned into our community’s collective memory. This proposal would add significant risk of batteries capable of burning for days in thermal runaway into the nearby landscape, and could add toxins into prime agricultural land and Ngunnawal country.

This is what I want you to think of as you contemplate the developer’s so called minor ‘modification’. We were damn lucky in 2013 that no human life was lost and fixed wing aircraft were able to be push back the threat, but add banks of highly flammable batteries on top of hundreds of turbines into the landscape and what will be our chances then?

The amenity of our region for our rural residents is important too and our iconic vistas as a Destination experience promoted by NSW Tourism from our paddock to plate experiences and on farm stays, cool climate wine region of excellence - and idyllic hills the stuff of Banjo Patterson poems with this region his childhood home - these economies all rely on the amenity of the region as a whole.

While I am the Mayor of Yass Valley and an organisational objection will be lodged separately, I make this submission as a very concerned individual, a wife and mother whose children, family, neighbours, friends and community will be in the direct path of any fire sparked by, or spurred on by, the addition of banks of shopping container size batteries /electricity generating works capable of thermal runaway.

This fresh application isn’t a tweak of layout or an extra granny flat on a block to look after Grandma - it’s a well-heeled developer poised to make millions, and a wildly riskier proposition for residents of both Yass Valley and Hilltops areas and therefore the ACT if a worst case scenario fire took hold and fire fighting efforts were hindered by batteries burning out of control and clusters of 260m tall turbines shrouded in smoke scuttled fixed wing support.

But please don’t just take my word for it. Instead, listen to the decades of lived experience from local firefighters, zone commanders and aviators who have identified this very risk. Please find attached their independent review of the risk to bushfire mitigation on a Fire Behaviour Index (FBI) day 40 or above.

Yass Valley Council has appealed to the Premier, the Minister and the Prime Minister requesting an immediate halt to further Wind Turbine and Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) developments in Yass Valley due to the emerging cumulative risk they pose to bushfire mitigation.

On September 25th, the Yass Valley Council resolved to bring to Minister Scully, the Premier’s and the Emergency Services Minister’s attention an independent report that warns of the cumulative impact of proposed State Significant Development Projects, associated infrastructure, and HumeLink transmission lines. This report highlights the severe impact these projects could have on aerial and ground firefighting efforts during high Fire Behaviour Index days (40 or above) or Total Fire Bans in our bushfire prone area.

The attached report, authored by NSW RFS Yass Group Captain Michael Gray (ret), is grounded in the lived experience of four decades of fire fighting in our region including the speed and fury of The Cobbler Road Fire - Bookham 2013, and the Canberra Fires. Report contributors include:
Mr Adrian Carey AFSM – Retired Southern Tablelands Zone Manager - 60 years of experience,
Mr Ian Kennerley – Retired Southern Tablelands Operations Officer - Highly experienced
in aviation with 40+ years service.
Current Fire Bomber Pilot flying AT 802 aircraft based out of NSW and first responder to fires.
The peer review was conducted by Mr Peter Alley, Southern Tablelands Zone Manager Yass, Goulburn Crookwell (ret. 2025) with 35 years of experience.

Yass Valley has already contributed significantly to the renewables rollout, with six State Significant Turbine and Solar projects constructed or approved. The Yass Valley Development Control Plan and Renewable Energy Development Policy expresses our community’s position that our region has reached capacity for turbine projects to now adequately protect amenity and population growth, existing economies such as agriculture/ wine, tourism, space sector (est. 2016) that relies on dark skies and low EMI, our environment including the Ngunnawal totem animal - the Wedge-tail Eagle, and capacity for bushfire mitigation. However, the NSW State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) can override this and could result in 700+ 265M tall turbines and associated infrastructure from all projects including Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) from those in scoping status proposing unprecedented cluster formations. Please see attached map.

Given the serious risks to life, Yass Valley Council calls for an immediate halt to further renewables development in our region. This will allow for the critical protection during bushfires of our citizens from rural farming families, village and town residents to our ACT neighbours.

I respectfully ask that you heed the attached report’s warning and act decisively for our community's safety.

Please keep the fate of all souls in Yass Valley off your conscious by refusing this modification that would place batteries in a high bushfire prone region to the detriment of the protection, safety and well being of all residents.


With respectful regard,

Jasmin Jones

Uploaded

The Binalong Bowning Community Action Group (BBCAG) is writing to formally object to
SSD-6698-MOD-2, which proposes the installation of up to 318 containerised Battery Energy
Storage System (BESS) units across 53 turbine sites at the Coppabella Wind Farm.
Please see the attached submission.

Please see attached submiaaion

I object against the modifications applications proposed for the Coppabella Wind Farm:
(1) The fire risk with these modifications to include a Battery Energy Storage System scattered at various locations around the wind turbines is going to yet again increase the danger of bush fires spreading. As you would be aware using aerial fire fighting planes is not possible among these huge turbines. A fire breaking out in one of these battery storage systems will no doubt damage the wind turbine structure adjacent, adding to the spread of a fire. Fires in BESS projects around the world have proved difficult if not impossible to control quickly and this will then prevent the ability to stop the spread of the fire. This particular proposed development is located on difficult to access and steep hills, making the work of fire fighters on the ground almost impossible. Therefore surrounding farms and properties are in more danger from these fire disasters with no way to control them at the source. Who is going to take responsibility for the damage caused by not being able to stop the fires at the source? Will the NSW Government take on this responsibility?
(2) Pollution of the environment: Once these developments have reached the end of their useful life how are the battery storage systems going to be dismantled. Or are they just to be left there along with the turbine concrete bases and covered up with soil? If so this will create yet more damage to the environment which will last possibly hundreds of years.
I object most strongly to the modifications proposed.

Contamination and Waste Management are issues that are being swept under the carpet. It’s time government stop putting renewable energy targets ahead of the nation’s public health and food security. Please see attachment:

This plan must not be approved as Thermal Runaway Fires burn for days - billowing poisonous smoke and releasing irreversibly contaminating residue - affecting vast areas and poisoning the public.

CSIRO explicitly states there is no certified method to extinguish lithium-ion battery fires, meaning failures escalate into uncontrollable thermal runaway events.
CSIRO Advisory Note AN-004 – Extinguishment of Lithium-Ion Battery Fires

RE: Coppabella Wind Farm Modification 2
There are a number of significant concerns with this proposal.
1. It is a complete distortion of the facts to pass this modification off as relatively insignificant and state, as the proponent has, that the project is substantially unchanged. The proposed modification represents a substantial change to the currently approved project and needs to be properly assessed as such.
2. The proposed inclusion of over 50 separate BESS, co-located on a high ridgeline with individual wind turbines, each containing 4 big lithium-ion battery packs in 6 x12m containers with a footprint of 500m2 (a total of over 300 containers to be sited along the ridgeline in 50 different locations) adds significantly to the visual impact of the project.
3. Most importantly, the proposed inclusion of over 50 separate BESS poses a serious and unacceptable fire risk to the surrounding Binalong and Bookham communities, and further afield to Yass and beyond as evidenced by the path of the Cobbler Rd fire in 2013. Lithium-ion battery storage catches fire – that is a well-documented fact. The site of this industrial wind facility is in a high-risk bushfire area, with the topography making it difficult to fight fires that start along the ridgeline even without the added risk from the turbines let alone 50 separate BESS, each of which is a potential point of ignition in its own right. Lives and property will be under threat with the local RFS ill-equipped and under resourced to respond to the thermal runaway fire that will inevitably start, and aerial firefighting hampered by the co-location of the BESS with the turbines. No amount of mitigation measures will reduce the risk to a level where this community is safe.
Please do not allow our lives to be put at risk by this desperate attempt to make an otherwise stalled project financially viable. The developer does not care about human life, only about commercial returns.
Our government has a responsibility to protect its citizens, not knowingly make decisions that put lives at risk.
I implore you to reject this proposed modification.
Regards
Sheri Norton

I strongly support all the comments lodged by the Binalong-Bowning Community Action Group on 11 December. In particular, I would emphasise, as an active member of the NSW RFS, the additional dangers, both known and unknown, to volunteer fire-fighters who are called upon to manage bushfires in this region. Fire-fighters are already under significant risk, beyond those which are considered traditional, from batteries and energy-generating equipment of all kinds, including EVs, charging devices and rooftop solar panels. As a member of the Executive of the Binalong brigade, I do not believe our volunteer members should be exposed to any increased level of risk which may arise from new battery devices of unknown fire potential sprinkled around the base of dozens or hundreds of wind towers, the benefits of which, if indeed there are any, accrue primarily to city folk many hundreds of kilometres away. We have already contributed more than our share in Yass Valley. Time for city folk to pull their weight.

For our comments, please read attached file

This plan breaches the Government’s Primary Duty of failing to protect its citizens from the obvious National Security Risks of CCP produced/controlled BESS infrastructure and the highly toxic, Fire hazardous nature of this BESS.

Knowingly introducing such toxic fire risk, cyber vulnerability, and infrastructure fragility in pursuit of ideological energy targets is completely irresponsible and unacceptable.

This BESS plan is intrinsically Toxic, experimental and unsafe technology.

Lithium-ion batteries are chemically unstable, release poisonous gases and persistent pollutants, and create long-term contamination risks when they fail.

“Forever Chemicals’ used in Lithium-ion Batteries Threaten Environment”
The Guardian, 14 July 2024

Batteries last on average 9 years only and therefore have to be replaced every 10 years. This will ensure the price of electricity to consumers will remain high to pay for the infrastructure.
Even decentralised BESS Lithium ion batteries have a propensity to catch fire and when fires happen they produce very toxic gases and dangerous chemicals that pollute the countryside and water.

On behalf of the Yass Landscape Guardians Inc. I wish to submit this submission opposing the Coppabella wind farm SSD6698 Modification 2 Decentralised BESS application by Goldwind.
Whilst Yass Landscape Guardians Inc. have opposed this project since its inception as part of the former Yass Valley Wind Farm in this instance we oppose the application for the addition of Coppabella wind farm Modification 2 Decentralised BESS application by Goldwind.
Whilst there are a multitude of reasons that Yass Landscape Guardians Inc. oppose this application by Goldwind for the addition of a decentralised BESS across 71% of the Coppabella wind farm, in this instance we will focus on just 1 aspect?
Grid Connection or at the very least the lack there of for the Coppabella wind farm at the latest Coppabella CCC 16th October 2025 where several members of the Yass Landscape Guardians Inc. are either members including myself or are alternate members of the Coppabella CCC, when Goldwind where queried on the night of the 16th October 2025 about connection of the Coppabella wind turbine project to the TransGrid transmission system it became obvious through landholders attending this meeting that also have the 99M 132KV transmission line passing through their property that TransGrid had notified them (the landholders) that they (TransGrid would not be moving forward with the duplication of the 99M 132KV transmission line until they came to a financial agreement with Goldwind for funding?
Goldwind further pressed on the subject of connection to the TransGrid transmissions system indicated that they where still waiting for TransGrid to formalise an offer to connect?
Therefore the Yass Landscape Guardians Inc. ask why would the NSW DPIE approve a significant modification to the Coppabella wind farm Mod 2 Decentralised BESS as applied for by Goldwind when the indications are that Goldwind are yet to be offered a final connection from TransGrid and that there are no immediate plans for the duplication of the 99M 132KV transmission line to include the 9R0 132KV transmission line from the proposed Coppabella 132KV substation to the Yass TransGrid 330/132KV substation, as per "Addendum Review of Environmental Factors" 2023?
A "cart before the horse" scenario?
Therefore in summing up Yass Landscape Guardians Inc. ask that Coppabella wind farm SSD6698 Modification 2 Decentralised BESS application by Goldwind, not be approved?

This insecure CCP reliant BESS plan is an open invitation for a catastrophic, sabotaging, Critical-Infrastructure attack on Australia’s Electricity Grid.

It’s extremely treacherous that this untrustworthy Government are relying on Chinese BESS that embed CCP-manufactured, networked hardware into Australia’s grid while lacking robust, transparent cyber-security requirements.