Offshore wind farms near Warrnambool, Portland mean port upgrade needed

Three wind farm companies have already announced plans for projects near Portland and a fourth is eying off waters south of Warrnambool.

A fifth company has signalled interest in the newly-announced south-west coast wind zone but is yet to announce firm plans.

Federal Minister for Energy and Climate Change Chris Bowen in June announced consultation would begin on the proposed 5100-square kilometre wind zone which he said could generate up to 14 gigawatts of renewable power - enough for 8.4 million homes.

But the zone location has thrown a spanner in the works for Alinta's Spinifex project that is in the planning stages for Portland.

After about 18 months of work, it has had to go back to the drawing board on the preferred location because its initial investigation area falls outside the proposed zone.

Mr Bowen said offshore wind farm projects would deliver 6000 new jobs for the region - 3000 during construction and another 3000 ongoing.

He said it would mean more ships through the Port of Portland during the construction phase and then to service them. "This is great news for the port, this is job-creating news for the port. The future is bright," he said.

But Port of Portland chief executive officer Greg Burgoyne said its berths were not capable of catering for the large infrastructure needed for offshore wind farms.

"If they were roughly the European size, we're not capable of bringing the ships in nor are our wharf decks strong enough to withstand the weight of some of these components," he said.

"We can't at this point in time import offshore wind farm components."

Any upgrade to cater for offshore wind farm infrastructure was likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more.

However, Energy and Resources Minister Lily D'Ambrosio said the state government was planning to use the deep port at Hastings to bring the infrastructure in and be used as the main assembly port.

But she said there would be a role for a number of other smaller ports.

"There's going to be quite a bit of activity, whether it's about environmental assessments, or testing, or running maintenance boats out to individual turbines," she said.

Ms D'Ambrosio said there was a lot more planning and infrastructure work to be done to make sure they were ready for construction to start.

While a number of wind farm companies have plans to be under construction or operational by 2030, Mr Burgoyne said his view was that it could be more like 10 to 15 years away before offshore wind farms were in production.

"We're really actively working with everyone - proponents and government - to try and iron this out because we do support de-carbonisation of the economy, there's just no question about that," he said.

"They have ambitions timelines. If they were to achieve these outcomes, they need to think very quickly about how to develop the infrastructure to support the installation of these offshore wind farms."

Ms D'Ambrosio said public consultation was critical to help the federal government determine the size and positioning of the zone.

She said after consultation in the proposed Gippsland zone, the initial proposed distance from the shore of 5km was extended to 10km, and other areas further out again. "It's early days," she said.

When it comes to where the infrastructure goes onshore, the state government has set up VicGrid to plan the transmission infrastructure with consultation already under way.

Where transmission infrastructure will come onto shore was an "open question" but Ms D'Ambrosio it was critical it was only what was necessary.

She said VicGrid would ensure each company didn't build its own transmission lines because otherwise there would be too many, creating an "awful mess" for communities to put up with - something that has caused angst in the south-west with land-based wind farms. "This is about minimising it," she said.

Ms D'Ambrosio said Victoria's offshore wind energy resource was the best in the country and top-three globally.

"It's a really great quality of ongoing wind that gets that additional energy generated," she said.

With the government announcing the Loy Yang coal-fired power station would close by 2035, the race is on to replace that site's electricity with renewables.

She said next year the government would kick off the early stages of its procurement process and moving towards having the first projects contracted by the end of 2025.

Despite having to rethink the exact location of wind turbines, an Alinta Energy spokesperson said it hoped to have its proposed $4 billion 1GW Spinifex offshore wind farm operational by early 2030.

"The project has a potential customer and connection point, wind data that we've gathered over the last 12 months using some of the most sophisticated wind monitoring equipment in the world, and we've progressed work in a number of other areas," a company spokesperson said.

"Now the Southern Ocean offshore wind zone has been proposed, which we welcome and is a win for the region, we're investigating alternative potential locations within the final zone."

The project was expected to hook into the electricity grid at the Portland smelter.

Skyborn Renewables is proposing a 2GW wind farm off Discovery Bay which could see about 115 wind turbines erected.

The company says the turbines would be able to be seen on the horizon from shore, but they were designed to minimise the visual impact and blend in.

The project location for the Cape Winds Offshore wind farm was chosen on the basis of suitable water depths, wind speeds, and close proximity to the existing 500kV grid network infrastructure.

The 500kV powerline from Portland to Gippsland is the largest in the country.

The wind offshore is generally stronger, more consistent, and less turbulent compared to onshore, the company says.

BlueFloat Energy and Energy Estate also has plans for 1.2GW off the coast of Port MacDonnell and to the west of Portland.

Its Southern Winds Offshore Wind Project is expected to begin construction mid-2028 and be operational in 2031, pending approvals.

It said there were also a number of technical and environmental studies that needed to be conducted before the final layout and location of the turbines was confirmed.

DP Energy has its eyes on the coast off Warrnambool for a potential offshore wind farm - one of five sites it was exploring.

Potential plans for an offshore wind farm near Warrnambool would be about one gigawatt which would power about 900,000 homes.

After taking a number of Portland community members to Canberra to talk with Mr Bowen recently, Member for Wannon Dan Tehan said he was meeting again with opponents this week.

Mr Tehan said he would write to the minister to outline their concerns in detail including the impact on threatened species such as whales and birds, and the impact on the fishing industry.

He said offshore power was three-times more expensive to produce than onshore power.

Mr Tehan said the state government's move to extend the life of Loy Yang power station until 2035 was "sensible".

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