Huge public interest as Hunter offshore wind zone proposal draws 1,900 submissions

Public consultation on Australia’s second official offshore wind development zone off the coast of New South Wales has attracted just shy of 2,000 submissions, giving the federal energy minister a lot of reading to do before he makes a final decision on the size and placement of the zone.

The Albanese government in February opened consultation on the establishment of an offshore wind zone in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the NSW Hunter Region, home to the massive Liddell coal power plant that was shut down just last week.

The consultation process sought feedback from industry and community on how best to harness the offshore wind resource alongside the Hunter, a manufacturing powerhouse that is also home to Australia’s largest smelter, Tomago Aluminium.

And feedback it got.

Federal Labor’s department of energy, environment and climate action has confirmed to RenewEconomy that as of close of consultation on Friday it has received 1,916 submissions, 93.6% of which came from individuals, not organisations.

The areas with the most submissions were 38.3% were from Central Coast, with 17.6% from Lake Macquarie and 15.5% from Newcastle. A majority 75.9% of submissions were public, with 48.4% also anonymous.

Of all of the submissions, 70% were provided with comments on the environment, with 51% related to fishing and 63% addressing visual concerns.

No further detail on the sources or flavours of the submissions has been given as yet – there are a lot to get through – but it is expected there will be some debate about the size and shape of the currently proposed zone.

Already, three major unions – the Maritime Union of Australia, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and the Electrical Trades Union – have publicly called upon the federal government to make it bigger than first proposed.

And Andy Evans, the CEO of Oceanex Energy which is working up the Novocastrian Offshore Wind project off the coast of NSW, has said he believes the proposed zone should double in size.

“The zone is smaller than, say, Gippsland, for very good and important reasons – defence-related reasons. That won’t change. But I’ll look at all the submissions,” said Bowen last week at a press conference at the closing Liddell plant.

“There’s been a lot of community interaction, which I very much welcome,” Bowen said.

“Of course there’s a range of views. Some people would like no offshore wind, some would like more offshore wind. I understand that. We get the balance right.”

So far, there is a handful of projects proposed for off the coast of New South Wales, but just a few of them in the Hunter zone, including the 2GW project being developed by OceanEx and Equinor, a 1.4GW project by Energy Estate, and the biggest floating wind project proposed for Australian waters yet, now owned by French nuclear giant EDF.

Another, BlueFloat Energy’s Eastern Rise Offshore Wind Project is proposed to be delivered over a period of seven years and have an installed capacity of 1.725 gigawatts.

Australia’s first official offshore wind development zone was formally declared in December, off the coast of Gippsland in Victoria.

The Gippsland offshore wind zone covers roughly 15,000 square kilometres offshore, running from Lakes Entrance in the east to south of Wilsons Promontory in the west, and at the time of its declaration counted more than 10GW of projects proposed for development.

See RenewEconomy’s Offshore Wind Farm Map of Australia