The Gippsland offshore wind projects are getting most of the industry’s attention, but in Western Australia the country’s other functional declared zone is moving ahead as well.
French energy giant EDF has referred its two Bunbury offshore areas to the federal EPBC process, after landing feasibility licences in February.
The 2,174 km2 referral area covers two zones, the corridor for the cables taking the power to shore, and a 1km buffer around everything as cover for the vessels doing the initial site investigations, the EPBC referral says.
EDF is planning to start the first geophysical campaign – the one mapping the seabed using the likes of sonar and echo sounders – at the end of 2027 and the second a year later.
A series of geotechnical investigations will take place around the same time to test the geology of the area.
The Bunbury zone is one of six in Australia, but one of only three where anything is happening.
Developers in the Gippsland zone, with its nine active projects and more than 20 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, are paying the price of being the country’s first offshore wind movers but do finally have the paperwork for the underwriting auction to peruse.
The Southern Ocean zone, also off the coast of Victoria, has one feasibility licensee for Alinta’s and Jera Nex’s 1 GW Spinifex project, although they’ve gone quiet as the latter focuses on its Blue Mackerel project in Gippsland.
The Bunbury zone, off the coast of Bunbury which is south of Perth, has two proponents over three licence areas: EDF won two and a joint venture between Spain’s EDP Renewables and Engie’s Ocean Winds won the other.
The other three zones in New South Wales and Tasmania are in hiatus, partly due to organisation opposition and partly due to the fact that they’re much more difficult to do.
EDF wants to build a 1.5 GW wind farm some 30-50km from the shore, possibly from 2032 if it gets all approvals and work done in time.
The average offshore turbine today is around 15 megawatts (MW), and at that size EDF’s projects would have 50 turbines on each licence area.
Rock lobsters and whales
The plans for the Bunbury offshore wind farm are for water depths as deep as 55m.
But the space between the licence area and the shore “suggests the likely presence of rocky reef and associated western rock lobster habitat”, the EPBC referral says.
The Southern Ocean zone was effectively sunk by rock lobsters – or at least, a powerful lobby of South Australian crustacean lovers and fishers. They forced the federal government to shrink the zone dramatically to avoid South Australia entirely.
Strident opposition against the proposed zone, and its potential consequences for rock lobsters, has been continuing for years. But unlike in South Australia, the W.A. industry does not have the ear of the state government.
“Commercial fisheries operate within and adjacent to the referral area, although spatial overlap is very small,” the EPBC referral says.
“The western rock lobster and octopus fisheries [account] for most commercial activity.”
Commercial fishing in the area was banned in January, to protect and rebuild critically low numbers of iconic Western Australian fish species.
EDF notes there isn’t much data around for benthic – seabed dwelling – creatures in its area of interest so it has to do a lot of work.
What is suspected is that there will be various species of whale and dolphin in the area, an issue used to great effect to shrink and effectively cancel, for now, the Illawarra zone in NSW.
The NSW zones are deeper and would need floating turbines attached to the seabed with chains. Opponents used claims originating from organised overseas groups to say that whales would get tangled – a lie that was easy to fact check but which spread quickly.
In the case of the Bunbury wind project, the referral says there simply isn’t enough information to suggest whales travel through the licence area at all, so more research into ocean life needs to be done.
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