Equinor has quietly dropped its plans to build a wind farm in the Bass Strait off the north coast of Tasmania. It is yet to commit to its remaining Australian project, Novocastrian Wind near Newcastle, despite being offered a second extension to accept a feasibility licence…Meanwhile Oceanex, which owns 60 per cent of the Newcastle project, said it was fully committed to the project…Equinor is assessing the Hunter feasibility licence offer…
BlueFloat Energy is looking to exit Australia, threatening its South Pacific Project in the Illawarra and Gippsland Dawn in Victoria. A company spokesperson said BlueFloat was continuing to investigate funding options for its Australian projects. Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) chief industry officer Stewart Mullin said BlueFloat had a speculative model that ran into financial problems…
Inflation has also put upward pressure on raw materials, narrowing profit margins which, alongside political uncertainty, is pushing companies towards safer bets…“They are looking [at] short-term markets where they are building projects now, rather than speculating.”…
Gippsland has benefited from being Australia’s first declared offshore wind zone, but it is also the only area shallow enough for fixed turbines.
In 2023–24, the CSIRO estimated floating offshore wind was about 36 per cent more expensive to build than fixed wind farms, at $7,488 per kilowatt of generation capacity. In the most recent draft of the 2024–25 GenCost report, the estimated cost of floating wind jumped 12 per cent to $8,362 per kilowatt, while the price of fixed wind fell slightly.
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