IT SHOULDN’T come as a complete surprise that one of the international consortium looking to develop a 2.5GW wind farm, 50km south of Wilsons Promontory, is hoping to save money on the deal by landing the power on the beach at Waratah Bay instead of cabling it 150km east to Giffard West near Sale.
It’s just business, right.
In fact, the selection criteria adopted by the state’s transmission planning authority, VicGrid, is so heavily skewed in favour of keeping costs to investors (and consumers) down, it also wouldn’t surprise to see them being allowed to build a new 95km, high-voltage powerline overhead from there to Loy Yang A to get the electricity into the grid.
Too expensive to put it underground, says VicGrid, although that’s exactly what the government-owned Marinus Link Pty Ltd has agreed to do with the undersea cable coming across from Tasmania, passing 15 metres below the sand dunes at Waratah Bay and unseen all the way to the Latrobe Valley.
And don’t be fooled by the focus-group-inspired name for the offshore wind power company that wants to do it, Gippsland Skies, a partnership between Mainstream Renewable Power (Dublin, Ireland) 35%, Reventus Power (London, England) 35%, AGL Energy (Sydney, Australia) 20% and Direct Infrastructure (Sydney, Australia) 10%.
They honestly couldn’t give a stuff about the aesthetics. It’s an investment pure and simple.
You’ll also find Aker Horizons (Norway) and Mitsui & Co (Tokyo, Japan) in the ownership too, as well as Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes who has made no secret of his preference for closing Loy Yang A ahead of the planned date in 2035.
Of course, all this fear and loathing could be for nothing if there’s a change of government in Canberra in April/May this year, and in Victoria in November next year.
Which makes a complete mockery of adopting an energy policy for Australia that is anything other than bipartisan.
What? Are we going to continue to chop and change between renewables, coal, gas and nuclear, with outgoing governments nobbling their opponents on the way out the door, and so-called investors having the upperhand with everything while the politicians play politics?
It’s an absolute disgrace!
The madness and waste of transitioning to an incredibly complicated mix of domestic, renewable and baseload power generation, and hoping it will work, with both hands tied behind our backs has got to stop.
And it’s not just about being able to enjoy the awesome beauty of Waratah Bay, with the magic backdrop of Wilsons Promontory, in perpetuity. It’s about country people not bearing the brunt of the government’s grand plan for 82% renewable electricity by 2030.
