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Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen has announced via social media that twelve offshore wind projects have been given feasibility licenses offshore Victoria in the Gippsland Offshore Wind Zone.
The first batch of six licences was awarded in May this year, with a combined capacity of approximately 12 GW.
Minister Bowen announced the second batch of six licenses earlier this week stating that the twelve projects have the potential to generate 25 GW, which is more electricity than the entire state of Victoria generated last year.
On Wednesday, Splash reported that RWE was granted a licence in the Gippsland Offshore Wind Zone to develop the Kent Offshore Wind Farm project. The lease area awarded to RWE has the potential to host a wind farm with up to 2GW of capacity, enough to power up to 1.6m homes with green electricity.
A joint venture between Origin and RES was also awarded the license for the Navigator North offshore wind project. The project is approximately 34 km offshore and covers an area of 700 sq km and has the potential to deliver 1.5GW of total installed capacity as well as create an estimated 1,400 new jobs during the design and construction phase and a further 60 jobs over the project’s 30-year operational life.
Corio has been awarded a feasibility license for the 2.5GW Great Eastern Offshore Wind project some 22 km off the central Gippsland coast to the east of Wilson’s Promontory. The project is expected to be operational in 2032 to meet Victorian state targets and the project will then be operational for 30-plus years
Another license which was awarded was for the Gippsland Dawn Offshore Wind Project developed by BlueFloat Energy. Gippsland Dawn is proposed to be located between Paradise Beach and Ocean Grange and can generate up to 2.1GW of electricity – enough to power more than 1m homes. The project could be operational by 2031. The project will create 2,000 jobs during construction and 200–300 ongoing jobs during the operations and maintenance stages. It has an operational lifespan of up to 30 years.
The last two licenses were awarded to Spanish developer Iberdrola and Denmark’s Ørsted for the Aurora Green and Gippsland 02 projects, respectively. |
