Tanya Plibersek rejected this clean energy project. The Allan government is trying again

An offshore wind hub at the Port of Hastings that was rejected by the federal government has been given a second chance after the Allan government reapplied to have to the project approved.

Victoria has pledged to scale back its original proposal to get it over the line, cutting the amount of land reclamation by about 35 per cent and promising to dredge 70 per cent less of the sea bed.

The Old Tyabb Reclamation Area where the Victorian Renewable Energy Terminal will be developed.

The Victorian government says the Port of Hastings project is essential to meet its target for construction of offshore wind farms, which the state is banking on to replace the energy lost as ageing coal-fired generators come offline.

But the project is near wetlands protected by the Ramsar convention, an agreement signed by more than 170 countries, and in January 2024 then-environment minister Tanya Plibersek found the original proposal would have an unacceptable environmental impact and was “likely to cause irreversible damage” to this habitat.

The saga has already delayed the project’s completion date by two years.

In response to the federal government’s concerns, the Port of Hastings Corporation this week launched a new application for a “substantially modified project” and published a response to each of the issues outlined in the rejection notice.

The total area of land it proposes to reclaim from the sea has been reduced from 29 hectares to 18 hectares, while the area needing to be dredged has been refined and reduced by 70 per cent. Both of the works have also been moved to minimise their impact.

The Port of Hastings argues that the changes mean 0.07 per cent of habitat within the protected wetland is now proposed to be affected.

“As this loss is relatively small and localised to an area of wetland within the existing port precinct, it would not constitute a substantial modification and will not result in an adverse impact on the ecological character of the Western Port Ramsar site as a whole,” application documents say.

A Victorian government spokesperson said the state had laid the groundwork to get Australia’s first offshore wind industry set up in Victoria and would continue working with the Commonwealth on next steps.

The state government is banking on offshore wind farms to replace the energy lost as ageing coal-fired generators come offline.Credit: Bloomberg

“Our offshore wind industry will deliver national energy security, help lower power bills and create good local jobs for Victorians,” the spokesperson said.

Victoria has legislated targets of building 2 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2032 and 9 gigawatts by 2040.

If approved, the Victorian Renewable Energy Terminal will be a staging area where turbines are assembled before final construction in the waters off Gippsland.

But it must be signed off by the federal government under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act before it can begin construction.

The delay in approvals mean it is now scheduled to be completed by 2030, despite the state originally pledging to have it up and running by 2028, putting pressure on efforts to deliver wind power in time for the closure of coal-fired powered stations.

Proponents of Victoria’s most advanced offshore wind proposal, Star of the South, have identified Geelong Port and the Port of Bell Bay in Tasmania as potential construction sites alongside the Port of Hastings, depending on approvals and timing.

Opposition energy spokesman David Davis said the government’s delays had compromised the future of offshore wind.

“An incompetent government has finally submitted a serious application,” he said.

The rejection of the initial bid has been a source of tension between the state and federal governments.

In February, this masthead revealed correspondence and minutes of meetings between senior bureaucrats that suggested Victorian officials wanted their federal counterparts to help them revise the project.

But this prompted the Commonwealth’s most senior environmental bureaucrat, Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water secretary David Fredericks, to warn in writing that it was “not appropriate” for his departmental officials to provide advice on how to make the project fit for environmental approval.

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