Alinta seeks licence to progress huge offshore wind plans in tiny Southern Ocean zone

A more than 1GW offshore wind farm proposed for the Southern Ocean zone off the coast of Victoria has lodged an application for a feasibility licence, in a bid to move the project to the next stage of development.

The Spinifex Offshore Windfarm is being proposed for development by Alinta Energy and Jera Nex subsidiary Parkwind as part of Alinta’s plan to power the Portland Aluminium Smelter with up to 100% renewables.

The project is vying for a spot in the comparatively small 1,030 km2 Southern Ocean Zone, which sits at least 15-20km from Victoria’s south-west coast and has the capacity to host up to 2.8GW of offshore wind capacity – enough to power over 2 million homes, or two-and-a-half Portland Smelters.

The companies said on Thursday that a feasibility license would allow them to conduct further research, tests and consultation on proposed project within a designated area of the Southern Ocean zone, which was formally declared in March.

Spinifex project development manager Linden Blair and project director Peter Caluwaerts it’s taken almost four years of work to get to this “key milestone” for the wind farm.

“Our early work has included several initial environmental and technical studies as well as early engagement with key stakeholders and the community,” Caluwaerts said.

“We’re hoping that licences will be awarded as soon as possible. In the meantime, we will continue to undertake pre-licence award work such as environmental surveys for marine life, wind monitoring, and stakeholder engagement where appropriate,” said François Van Leeuw, co-CEO of Parkwind.

“We’ll continue to provide updates on the project and if we are awarded a licence, we will begin our detailed studies and consultation process. There will be many more opportunities for community input to come.”

The $4 billion Spinifex project was first flagged by Alinta CEO Jeff Dimery in an interview on RenewEconomy’s weekly Energy Insiders podcast in 2021, as part of the thermal energy generation company’s plans to move beyond fossil fuels.

As the owner of the Loy Yang B coal plant in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, Alinta is party to a five year deal alongside AGL and Origin to provide subsidised power to the energy hungry Portland Smelter, both to keep it running and in exchange for its services in the increasingly crucial demand response market.

The Spinifex offshore wind farm is proposed to be connected to the National Electricity Market via the existing substation at the smelter and help transform it into one of Australia’s first to be powered by up to 100 per cent renewables.

It’s a plan that has won the support of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which in 2022 awarded $1.5 million in grant funding towards the project’s wind resource assessment and accelerate initial development activities off the coast of Portland.

Parkwind – a fully owned subsidiary of Jera Nex, which is the newly launched renewable business of Japan’s largest coal and gas-fired power plant owner, Jera – came on board the project in April.

In Australia, Parkwind has a majority stake in the Blue Mackerel offshore wind joint venture that was one of six projects to be awarded a feasibility licence, in May, to progress projects in Australia’s first offshore wind zone off the coast of Gippsland in Victoria.

As Renew Economy reported earlier this week, a total of 10 offshore wind projects are now moving on to the next stage of development in the Gippsland zone, after another four projects were granted feasibility licences by the federal government.

The feasibility licences give the companies exclusive seven-year seabed rights to develop their project – including site and environmental investigations and community consultation – and to apply for a commercial licence to build and operate a wind farm.