As big as two Harbour bridges: The giant wind farms you’ll see from the coast
By Laura Chung and Nick O’Malley
Dozens of wind turbines almost twice the height of the Sydney Harbour Bridge could soon be seen off the coast of Australia after the federal government last week named six areas it hopes to declare “suitable” for the industry after years of delay.
As Australian governments dithered over drafting regulations for Australia’s offshore wind industry, a technological revolution swept the globe. Turbines that just a few years ago towered over the landscape became gigantic, sophisticated machines that could be built on barges and floated far offshore, pumping vast amounts of energy back to land via undersea cables.
“We are way behind the game, way behind the rest of the world in producing wind off our coastline. Again, we have a lot of catching up to do. Offshore wind is jobs-rich and energy-rich,” federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said last week, announcing which sites around the country the government viewed as suitable for offshore wind.
In the years it has taken to draft and finally approve regulations for offshore wind, the industry has exploded across Europe, Asia and now parts of North America. As the industry spread across the globe, the machines it uses to generate electricity have grown in size.
The turbines expected to be installed off Gippsland, Wollongong and Newcastle will have blades longer than 100 metres long, scraping the sky 260 metres above the waves. The top of Sydney’s Harbour Bridge is 135 metres above sea level.
Bowen confirmed that the first project seeking approval would be the Star of South, which proponents hope to build off Gippsland. Should it go ahead as planned it would be one of the world’s largest, providing up to 20 per cent of Victoria’s energy.
Why so big?
Wind turbines have grown on average by 60 per cent over the past 20 years as their builders strive to make the most of the typically stronger and more consistent winds that can be found further from the ground.
Larger turbines generate energy more cheaply too, says Andy Evans, who was the co-founder and chief executive of Star of the South and who is now leading another offshore wind farm company, OceanEx.
A single 14-megawatt wind turbine of the sort now being built needs just a single connection to a substation and less maintenance than two 7-megawatt turbines that were typical just a few years ago. Maintenance at sea with crews ferried by boat or helicopter is expensive.
Evans confirmed that the project OceanEx is championing for 20 kilometres off the coast in the Hunter region will be visible from shore on clear days, while the turbines proposed for the Illawarra could be slightly closer.
Despite this, the industry has broadly maintained community support. Friends of the Earth spokesperson Cam Walker said, given the NSW proposals were fairly new, it was difficult to gauge opinion.
“We think there is wide support for the jobs that would come with the development of an offshore industry near cities like Newcastle and Wollongong, which have traditionally relied heavily on fossil fuels for employment and economic activity,” he said. “In Gippsland, we feel that there is solid support for the Star of the South project, which is the only one that has so far advanced in the planning process.”