Call for Australia to make wind turbine towers as well as solar PV and battery storage

The local manufacture of wind turbine towers in Australia could create more than 4,000 direct jobs, produce more than 800 towers a year and slash millions of tonnes of emissions from imports, a new report has found.

The report from The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work is calling for wind turbine towers to be included in the policy push for a Future Made in Australia, alongside solar PV and battery energy storage systems.

It says that given Australia’s “comparatively unsophisticated manufacturing base,” a mature low-medium technology activity like making turbine towers is well within our domestic capability. And returns could be significant.

According to cases simulated in the report, an established workforce could produce around 818 towers every year with a cumulative value of $15 billion over the next 17 years.

Report author Phil Toner said about 2.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions would also be avoided due to reduced shipping.

“Anyone concerned about the climate should be up in arms at the fact we’re importing huge heavy steel towers from China when we could be producing them here, which would provide fantastic opportunities for our burgeoning green steel sector,” he said.

“With all the opportunities of a net-zero global economy, do we really just want to replace traditional mineral exports like coal with new generations of unprocessed minerals like lithium and rare earths?

“Manufacturing our own wind power equipment represents an enormous opportunity for Australia.”

Wind towers have previously been manufactured in Australia, but policy uncertainty over a decade of federal Coalition governments put local operations out of business, with the last locally produced turbine tower finished in 2020, according to the report.

The Centre for Future Work says fresh efforts to establish turbine tower manufacturing in Australia are unlikely to meet the same fate, due to supportive renewables policies both federally and in states – and due to the resurgence in wind farm development and the nascent offshore industry.

“Efficient wind tower production is scale intensive, but industry suggest the level of projected demand for onshore wind generation is sufficient to support the establishment of factories, especially in NSW and Queensland close to major wind farm developments, at a scale to deliver world-matching productivity,” the report says.

“Similarly, the scale of demand for offshore wind towers is also projected to be sufficient to support efficient local manufacture.”

The Centre for Future Work recommends governments cooperate with industry to commission studies into requirements to establish wind tower manufacturing on Australia’s east coast.

With reporting from Kat Wong: AAP