Offshore wind milestone as Star of the South seabed survey gets underway

A new milestone has been ticked off the list ahead of the development of Australia’s first offshore wind farm, with the launch of an investigation to test seabed conditions off the Gippsland coast in Victoria.

Victoria’s energy minister Lily D’Ambrosio announced on Friday that a specialist vessel and crew would spend five weeks at sea collecting soil and rock samples from up to 70 metres beneath the seafloor as part of Australia’s first ever marine geotechnical campaign for offshore wind.

The survey, which forms part of the pre-construction work for the pioneering Star of the South Offshore Wind Project, has been kicked along with a $19.5 million state funding contribution through the Energy Innovation Fund.

The study, which will also collect samples from 22 different locations within the project’s 2019 Exploration Licence area, will use its findings to help design the proposed offshore wind energy farm to suit local seabed conditions.

“This will be the first marine geotechnical campaign in Australia for offshore wind energy – which is a huge achievement for Victoria as it makes the transition from coal to renewables,” D’Ambrosio said on Friday.

Star of the South blazes a trail

The 2.2GW Star of the South project – which is being developed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Cbus and its original Australian co-founders Andy Evans, Terry Kallis and Peter Sgardelis, is on track to be Australia’s first offshore wind farm, with support from both the Victorian government and federal Labor.

The Albanese government awarded Star of the South Major Project Status in December of last year, at the same time as it officially launched Australia’s domestic offshore wind industry, with the formal declaration of the nation’s first development zone in the Bass Strait off Victoria.

Victoria, too, has a vested interest in getting the trailblazing project up and generating as quickly as possible, to help meet its offshore wind energy targets of at least 2GW of capacity by 2032, 4GW by 2035 and 9GW by 2040.

To this end, the Andrews government on Friday also released a series of Offshore Wind Implementation Statements to support and guide industry and the community on the development of the new sector.

D’Ambrosio says Offshore Wind Energy Victoria (OWEV) is designing a comprehensive support package that will provide certainty for project developers and financiers to deliver offshore wind projects in the state.