Victorian government removes ‘embarrassing’ offshore wind paper from its website
The 2022 paper predicted Victoria would need to use ‘up to 70pc’ of its agricultural land for wind and solar farms unless it opted for the offshore alternative.
An energy industry expert says he believes the Allan government has removed an offshore wind policy directions paper from its website because it makes “embarrassing statements”, including that “up to 70 per cent” of Victoria’s agricultural land could be required for wind and solar farms if the offshore alternative is not used.
The March 2022 paper has disappeared from the Department of Energy Environment and Climate Action’s website, prompting Centre for Independent Studies energy program director Aidan Morrison to suggest that the government is trying to hide a document which highlights the massive challenge Victoria faces in meeting its target of 95 per cent renewable energy by 2035, and net zero by 2045.
The government’s target at the time the paper was published was a slightly less ambitious net zero by 2050, with the paper predicting that it would require “the construction of unprecedented amounts of renewable energy in Victoria — more than 15 times today’s installed renewable capacity according to the current best estimate.”
Despite Victoria’s 2022 “integrated system plan” for renewable energy forecasting that just over 40GW of renewable energy generation would be required to reach net zero by 2050, the paper states that “grid scale wind and solar capacity must rise exponentially” – to “60GW+ potentially” to reach the target.
“Analysis indicates that to meet net-zero targets using onshore renewables could require up to 70 per cent of Victoria’s agricultural land to host wind and solar farms,” the paper states.
Just in case readers thought the 70 per cent figure was a typo, the paper goes on to devote a page to maps and statistics to back up the claim, stating: “Given Victoria’s low agricultural land area relative to other states, achieving full energy decarbonisation with only onshore renewables is an implausible prospect.”
“For example, 60GW using only onshore wind and large-scale solar could require up to 70 per cent of agricultural land, or four times the area of Greater Melbourne,” the paper says, estimating Victoria’s total agricultural land at 127,000 square kilometres.
The figure is used to justify the decision to invest in offshore wind, which the paper predicts will cost $94/MWh as of 2026, compared with $49/MWh for onshore wind, and $35/MWh for solar, with those figures falling to $40-63/MWh for offshore wind, $44/MWh for onshore and $25/MWh for solar by 2050.
The paper says the state should be aiming to procure an initial offshore wind tranche of at least 2GW, with the aim for first power by 2028.
Victoria’s current offshore wind targets — which could be knocked off course by federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s December decision to veto the state government’s plans to build an assembly terminal at the Port of Hastings — are to produce at least 2GW of electricity via offshore wind by 2032, 4GW by 2035 and 9GW by 2040.
Asked why he believed the Allan government had taken its directions paper off line, Mr Morrison said: “I think it makes some embarrassing statements.”
“This represents something of a pattern of the way the case for large amounts of renewables is consistently rolled out,” Mr Morrison said.
“They tend to establish one particular fact, as a premise for justifying urgency or subsidies on one element of the system, in this case offshore wind, and then they try to hide or bury the reasons for that urgency and subsidy so it can’t be used as an argument against the whole transition later on.
“In this case for offshore wind they’re obviously trying to hide the fact that the enormous land usage will impact rural communities.
“That’s justifying a large subsidy for offshore wind, which is actually more expensive than other onshore alternatives.
“I’d go so far as to say this is the classic circular logic that’s required to support an extremely expensive renewable energy system.”
An Allan government spokeswoman did not directly address questions about whether the government stood by the conclusions in the March 2022 paper, saying the offshore wind industry was “rapidly evolving”.
“We’re providing industry and Victorians with the most up-to-date information to guide their development – that’s why we’ve released three implementation statements in the past two years,” the spokeswoman said.
“Renewable energy, including offshore wind generation is essential for Australia’s energy security and Victoria is one of the leaders — reaching our highest ever level of renewable electricity generation last financial year at 38 per cent.”
Opposition energy spokesman David Davis said the taking down of the paper from the government’s website was “a direct reflection of the failure of the government’s offshore wind policy to date.”
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