This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
GIPPSLAND is set to become the country’s first zone for offshore wind project development, with the federal government starting public consultation for the Victorian region.
The Bass Strait off Gippsland region in Victoria’s east will become the first such zone in Australia for this new renewable industry, with more than 6,000MW of potential projects already in the pipeline ahead of the government’s announcement last Friday.
“Unlocking the offshore wind industry is an exciting new chapter for Australia and we want to build a platform of community collaboration and support around it,” said Chris Bowen, federal minister for energy.
Friday marked the official commencement of the process to see the area declared a zone for offshore wind project development, with public consultation to include work with the local community, the maritime sector and environmental and industry groups.
“This new industry will provide opportunities to reduce emissions and fast track job and economic development opportunities for regional Australia particularly in clean energy generation and manufacturing,” added Bowen.
Works in the pipeline currently include the 2,200MW Star of the South project by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Cbus, with the project anticipated to create around 2,000 new jobs through development and 200 ongoing operational jobs.
Pending approvals, Star of the South is expected to begin works as soon as the mid-2020s, before reaching full power generation at the close of the decade.
Star of the South is also a key part of the Victorian government’s nation-first offshore wind target, with two gigawatts targeted for offshore energy production by 2032, four GW by 2035 and nine GW by 2040, while investments into new projects in the industry are expected to stimulate $5.8 billion in economic activity.
While other projects include the 1,000MW Great Southern wind project by Macquarie’s Green Investment Group and a 1,3000MW Greater Gippsland project by Energy Estate and BlueFloat Energy.
The federal government also announced five further regions identified with potential to support the new industry including, NSW’s Pacific Ocean regions off the Hunter and Illawarra regions, Victoria’s Southern Ocean region off Portland, WA’s Indian Ocean Region off Perth and Bunbury and Tasmania’s Bass Strait region off the north of the state.
“Many other countries have been successfully harvesting offshore wind energy for years, and now is the time for Australia to start the journey to firmly establish this reliable and significant form of renewable energy,” concluded Bowen.
The consultation period for declaring Gippsland a zone for offshore wind project development will last the required 60 days.
