Mrs Hickson lives far off the paved roads and off the electricity grid, so to get power at her house on Bluff River Road she has to generate it herself.

At first she just used solar panels to power her house, but the system didn’t generate enough electricity and her son installed a small wind turbine to meet demands.

“But then he told me I was not using enough!” Mrs Hickson said. “So now I leave the television on in the background of an evening when I wouldn’t before.”

Since her son installed the turbine - which is around two metres in diameter and currently sits about 10 metres from the ground - Mrs Hickson has not looked back. She said she has had few problems with her power supply in the past six years and welcomed the news that Tenterfield may one day have the chance to construct its own wind farm, with wind speed tests currently underway at Bungulla.

“I like to look at them,” Mrs Hickson said, referring to the turbines.

“I don’t think they are an eyesore, and the wind is there so why not use it?”

Even the small turbine at Mrs Hickson’s house makes a noticeable whooshing noise as it spins through the air and Mrs Hickson admits that it would probably be a problem for people living near the towers. But she said that problem was one that could be solved.

“They should put them where people don’t live. People living near them would get a heck of a lot of noise,” Mr Hickson said. “What I think the problem will be is with the powerlines.”

Mrs Hickson said she thought there would be a great amount of concern from the general public regarding just how the farm would be connected to the grid, and thought there might be another Transgrid-type battle on hand.

Chris Sweatman, Managing Director of RES Australia, the company currently carrying out wind speed tests at Bungulla, said that it was still too early to say how or where the farm would be connected to the national grid.