The federal government of Australia has declared an area in the Southern Ocean off Victoria as the country’s third offshore wind zone albeit with a significant reduction in power generation potential.
The proposed zone was supposed to be home to 14GW of offshore wind power, but the government shrunk the zone to just 2.9GW of offshore wind capacity.
The area spans 1,030 sq km some 20 km offshore Port Fairy. The original area was supposed to go from offshore Warrnambool in western Victoria to Port MacDonnell in South Australia. The declared zone no longer includes an area offshore of South Australia.
The change came about after the country’s climate change and energy ministry considered feedback from a public consultation process from June to August 2023. According to the ministry, the smaller zone avoids “important environmental areas and major commercial fishing grounds, while addressing concerns regarding visual impacts”.
Applications for feasibility licence applications for offshore wind projects in the new zone can be submitted by July 2. Construction work can only begin after the feasibility stage is completed and developers receive environmental and management plan approvals.
Australia’s first offshore wind zone was announced in 2022, in the Bass Strait off Gippsland spanning 15,000 sq km and will be able to receive up to 10GW of capacity. The federal government did, however, reject Victoria’s seaport terminal project based on environmental concerns. A second zone of 1,854 sq m and a potential 5.2GW of capacity was declared in 2023 off the Hunter region in New South Wales.
The government also carried out public consultations for two other proposed areas off Illawarra with a potential 4.2GW and in the Bass Strait off the coast of northern Tasmania with up to 28GW of potential capacity. It is currently consulting on a sixth and final zone, off Western Australia which has a potential for 20GW of capacity. Currently, Australia has no operational offshore wind farms, the first is expected to come online in the early 2030s.
