Victoria submits “substantially modified” plan for port critical to its offshore wind ambitions

A new and “substantially modified” plan for Australia’s first offshore wind-dedicated port has be re-submitted for assessment under the federal government’s EPBC Act, after an earlier version was ruled out for posing a “clearly unacceptable” environmental risk.

The Victorian Labor government-backed plans to build a base of operations at the Port of Hastings for the construction of the state’s pipeline of offshore wind projects hit a wall in January 2024, after they were ruled out for posing a “clearly unacceptable” environmental risk.

The decision, signed off by then federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek, centred around the impacts the proposed Victorian Renewable Energy Terminal would have on the Western Port Ramsar wetlands, which are internationally protected.

In response, Victoria’s planning minister asked the Port of Hastings Corpoation (PoHC) to prepare an environmental effects statement (EES) for the proposed project, to assess alternative project layouts, designs and approaches to avoid and mitigate effects on the wetlands and other habitats and species.

PoH has now taken the step of officially withdrawing the original proposal from the EPBC system and has submitted a new plan for consideration.

In the documents submitted to the EPBC on Thursday, the PoHC says it has “developed a substantially modified project,” that specifically addresses each of the issues identified in the Ministers Statement of Reasons for rejecting the original proposal.

“The new referral addresses concerns outlined by the Australian government in 2023, and is supported by scientific evidence confirming that project impacts investigated to date are localised and manageable,” a separate statement from the PoHC says.

“We have undertaken preliminary environmental assessments, technical studies and design work to help inform our new referral, with significant reductions to our dredging and reclamation compared to our previous 2023 referral submission.”

Among the key changes, PoHC says here that the rebooted project will “affect a small portion of the Western Port Ramsar Wetlands.”

“The reclamation area for the proposed Terminal will be less than 0.03% of the approximately 60,000-hectare area designated as the Ramsar wetlands.

“Environmental assessments to date show that potential impacts to mudflats, sedimentation, seagrass, marine life, and waterbirds will be highly localised and manageable, with no unacceptable impact on the ecological character of the Ramsar wetlands,” it says.

The EPBC referral is now live on the EPBC Act Public Portal, and is open for public comment for 10 business days.

For Victoria, development of the terminal at the Port of Hastings is a key part of the state renewable energy plans, which includes offshore wind targets of at least 2GW by 2032, 4GW by 2035 and 9GW by 2040.

Port of Hastings is the closest deep-water port to Australia’s first declared offshore wind development zone off the coast of Gippsland in Victoria’s south-east and has also been identified as the preferred primary construction port for the 2.2GW Star of the South – likely to be Australia’s first offshore wind farm.