Alinta Energy has unveiled early-stage proposals for a 1GW offshore wind farm to be established around 10 km off the coast of Portland, in the Australian state of Victoria.
Alinta said the Spinifex wind farm would be able to supply the Portland Aluminium Smelter and east coast electricity grid.
The Spinifex offshore wind farm would connect to the grid via the smelter and would make the site among Australia’s first smelters to be powered by up to 100% renewables.
Up to A$4bn of investment would generate new wind farm construction and operation jobs and help secure jobs at the site.
Alinta Energy head of project development Kris Lynch said that the next steps would be conducting wind monitoring, site surveys and kicking off consultation in the new year.
Lynch said: “Existing data suggests Portland Bay has an excellent wind resource that would be suitable to power offshore wind turbines.
He said the developer is deploying monitoring equipment to collect data across the investigation area, which is around 500 square km and about 10 km from the shoreline.
Lynch said the “great thing” about the proposal is that the wind farm can connect to the grid via the smelter negating need for new powerlines on private land.
“We think the wind farm would need to be around 1000MW to be viable.”
Lynch added: “We also know the area has environmental, commercial and recreational uses and values that need to be thoroughly investigated and discussed, and we intend to kick off a more regular series of updates and discussions in the first half of 2022.
“We’re sharing the news at this early stage because we want to be able to speak openly with everyone as our initial investigations progress,” he said.
The project specifics – for example, where turbines will go and how big they’ll be – are some way off and would be informed by environmental studies, the available technology and cost, site investigations, approvals processes and consultation with the community and experts.
Portland Aluminium Smelter manager Ron Jorgensen said the exciting proposal aligned with the aluminium industry’s direction to decarbonise.
“This proposal offers an ability to make a step change impact to Portland Aluminium’s carbon footprint and we welcome the opportunity to be involved in supporting the early phase investigations of this exciting renewable project on the Australian energy landscape,” Jorgensen said.