“Massive boost” or biodiversity disaster? Tension mounts over fate of Robbins Island wind farm

Tension continues to mount over the fate of a $1 billion-plus, 900MW wind farm proposed for Robbins Island off north-west Tasmania, with the state Liberal government this week urging the federal environment minister to “get on and approve” the project, despite an ongoing legal challenge to its state environmental approvals.

The wind farm has faced opposition from community and green groups since it was first proposed for the island in the Bass Strait, due to its role as a habitat for the critically endangered orange bellied parrot and other wildlife, including wedge-tailed eagles and Tasmanian devils.

In 2022, the wind farm was given approval by Tasmania’s Environment Protection Authority on the condition its 100 turbines shut down for five months a year when the parrot migrates.

That decision was overturned, however, after developer Acen Australia successfully appealed to the Tasmanian Civil Administrative Tribunal. A counter appeal against the TasCAT decision has since been lodged with the Supreme Court by the community-based Circular Head Coastal Awareness Network.

Meanwhile, the huge and contentious project is in the process of being assessed at the federal government level under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – a process the Tasmania premier says is “delaying” important progress.

“We need to get this done,” Rockliff said in a statement on Wednesday.

“It will be a massive boost for our renewable energy future.

“It will provide clean energy for tens of thousands of homes, create hundreds of jobs and drive billions of dollars of economic development for our state.”

But former Australian Greens leader Christine Milne, who works at the not-for profit Bob Brown Foundation with her former boss and the Greens party founder, disputes the argument that Tasmania needs the renewable energy from Robbins Island wind farm and questions whether it is economically viable, given the infrastructure that needs to be built to support it.

“It’s dependent on Marinus Link taking the energy to the mainland …so it’s not to meet Tasmanian demand. It is mega-development that is speculative in the national energy market,” Milne told RenewEconomy on Thursday.

“So the question becomes, why would you even consider permitting that, when it’s going to have such an adverse impact on the ecosystem as a whole and on so many endangered species?

“The only argument they have for destroying biodiversity is …’we can use the renewable energy.’ The question is, do we need that renewable energy from that particular site?

“And is it economically viable to produce it from there or is there a feasible alternative? And in the case of Robbins Island, of course there are feasible alternatives.”

Milne points to the 288MW solar farm being developed in the state’s midlands region on the property of sheep grazier Roderick O’Connor.

“So here you have a large solar farm on a private property with no adverse environmental impacts, which is supported by everybody, compared with a mega wind farm with enormous adverse environmental impacts being proposed, and it’s not even viable.

“There are so many reasons why the federal government under the EPBC should totally reject Robbins Island,” Milne adds.

“The federal [environment] minister [Tanya Plibersek] has asked that all of the evidence provided to TasCAT hearing be provided to her department for consideration in this matter – and that evidence is comprehensive and I just can’t see how she can make any decision other than to reject the wind farm on that expert evidence basis.”

From the Tasmanian government, meanwhile, the message to Plibersek – who just this month rejected plans to develop the Victorian Renewable Energy Terminal, due to the unacceptable impact it would have on protected wetlands – is hurry up and wave Robbins Island through.

“The project has undergone among the most rigorous approvals processes in the world,” state energy minister Nick Duigan said in the joint statement on Thursday.

“It’s time to get on and build it.”