Sarah Clarke reported this story on Wednesday, June 5, 2013 12:34:00

ELEANOR HALL: The wind-farm industry received another boost today with a peer reviewed science paper debunking claims that living near wind turbines can make you sick.



The paper is published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health and it examines the evidence behind the claims.



Its lead author says the movement is based on a single case of a child with learning difficulties, and that there's no medical evidence to back the existence of any new disease.



This report from environment reporter Sarah Clarke.



SARAH CLARKE: It's been a big 12 months for the renewable energy industry.



Earlier this year, the millionth solar power system was installed and last year wind energy powered the equivalent of one million homes for the first time.



Now the latest figures show that in 2012, clean energy delivered 13.5 per cent of the electricity market.



Russell Marsh is from the Clean Energy Council.



RUSSELL MARSH: Most of our renewable energy still comes from hydro but we are now starting to see quite a large contribution from wind, about 26 per cent of our renewable energy comes from wind. But I think the big growth area has obviously been solar PV in particular households solar where we are now seeing something like 8 per cent of our renewable energy generation coming from solar PV on people's roofs.



SARAH CLARKE: The council puts the growth down to the renewable energy target, which requires 20 per cent of the electricity market to be clean energy by 2020.



That combined with it becoming more cost competitive with coal and gas means renewables are increasing their share.



RUSSELL MARSH: Research put out by the Federal Government - the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics - has shown that right now renewable energy is one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation and that's going to continue to fall over the coming decades and soon will be the cheapest form of electricity generation available to Australia.



SARAH CLARKE: The figures come as another paper published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health dismisses claims that wind farms can make you sick.



The research examined the evidence for the condition known as vibro-acoustic disease or what's also referred to as wind turbine syndrome.



Professor Simon Chapman is from the University of Sydney.



SIMON CHAPMAN: Claims which have been made by anti-wind turbine groups that vibro-acoustic disease is caused by wind turbines mysteriously turn out to not even have a single research paper looking at that connection.



The connection has been made from a conference presentation made in Europe some years ago and based on the study of just one person, a young boy whose only symptom was having difficulties at school.



SARAH CLARKE: That conference presentation, according to Professor Simon Chapman, was authored by a group of Portuguese authors who initially wrote the report.



And since then, he says the condition has received virtually no scientific recognition.



SIMON CHAPMAN: I think it's a highly interesting example of motivated science that has simply got out there as a factoid off the leash and is now being repeated by interest groups who are opposed to wind turbines.



SARAH CLARKE: The Clean Energy Council welcomes the published research.



Russell Marsh is the policy director.



RUSSELL MARSH: You know we've seen something like 18 international studies that have been done that have looked in detail at the evidence for wind turbine syndrome if you like. And they've all concluded that as far as they're concerned there is no direct link between anything that wind turbines produce and people feeling sick.



SARAH CLARKE: But there are still a number of groups who are convinced there is a link between illness and wind farms.



The symptoms they complain of are nausea, insomnia, and headaches.



A senate inquiry report in 2011 recommended more studies be done on the noise impacts of turbines.



Gary Goland from the group Noise Watch Australia says that research now needs to be done.



GARY GOLAND: I'm a medical researcher involved with physiology for the last 30 years and basically it's a complex area. You need to look at the elements that do make the connection and a direct connection and one that is measurable to get a better understanding of what biological effects are happening.



To say that there are no health effects of low frequency noise or other noise doesn't line up with the many publications that are in many journals for a long time indicating that there are health effects.



ELEANOR HALL: That's Gary Goland from Noise Watch Australia ending that report from environment reporter Sarah Clarke.