Unions have raised concerns that an exclusion zone as part of a proposed nuclear submarine base in Port Kembla would reduce the space available for offshore wind farms, imperilling renewable energy projects.
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South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris said a 46 kilometre exclusion zone had been put in place around the RAAF Williamtown base in Newcastle, carving out an area of ocean as unsuitable for wind farms and pushing the turbines into deeper waters, increasing the project cost of the projects.
While a final offshore wind farm zone is yet to be declared for the Illawarra and no decision on the location of a submarine base will be made before the next election, Mr Rorris said this was the latest evidence of the incompatibility of the Illawarra's renewable energy future with the proposal for a fleet base east at Port Kembla.
"In the Hunter, a huge slice of the area that was favoured and proposed for wind farms has had to be excised," Mr Rorris said.
The semi-circular cutout that centres on the Port of Newcastle was revealed during the consultation period of the Offshore Renewable Energy Area off the coast of Newcastle. National research officer at the Maritime Union of Australia Penny Howard said the excised area came about due to a request from the Defence department.
"The map was quite different from what we were expecting, and from what a lot of the [wind farm] developers were expecting," she said. "The area was quite far off-shore, a lot of the area is up north by Port Stephens and they've missed out on quite a lot of that southern area."
The attractiveness of Newcastle and Port Kembla for offshore wind comes down to a number of overlapping factors not found in many other areas of Australia.
First, the seabed is relatively flat before the continental shelf drops off, allowing floating wind turbines to be anchored at depths of less than 200 metres. The locations are also close to transmission infrastructure that serve existing or ready-to-retire power stations, avoiding the need for massive cables and wires to carry the power generated to the grid. Finally, the existing ports mean that assembly and maintenance can be carried out cost effectively.
By pushing renewable energy areas further out to sea, the cost to connect the turbines to the shore increases, maintenance and upkeep is made more complicated and the cost of the project grows.
"You've got to have longer cables, heavier anchors," Ms Howard said. "If anything goes wrong and you need to send a diver down, that becomes much more difficult the deeper water that you get into. So you're creating more expense and complication, which is, in our view, just not necessary."
Offshore wind turbines close to other facilities overseas, such as airports, have adapted to the issues for aircraft without cutting out large swathes of area, Ms Howard said.
With Port Kembla competing for talent and investment with other offshore wind regions that are waiting to be declared, Mr Rorris called on the federal government to "clear the air" and provide clarity and transparency on the location of a future east coast base.
"What makes this region so ideally suited for renewable energy such as wind farms, hydrogen and other investments is that we don't have those complicating factors, we do not have a defence facility in Port Kembla," he said.
"You keep the threat of a nuclear base hanging over this region, and we lose that advantage."
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