BlueFloat Energy told Thirroul loves the ocean just as it is - without South Pacific Offshore Wind Project

BlueFloat's proposal, which is in its early stages, would build the turbines - up to 200m tall and with a blade circumference of about 250m - about 14km or more offshore.

They would be clearly visible from land, a fact which Thirroul pharmacist Adrienne Smith said would change the nature of the place.

"I was on a walk in Wales and I saw windmills at sea and I came home thinking, 'I hope that never happens to my view of the ocean'," she said.

"It was awful and there was nowhere else to look and your view will be changed. You will not have peace when you're looking at the ocean anymore.

"Ships are there but they come and go. Windmills don't come and go. If you can see them, they will not go.

"This is just a beautiful, simple place where lots of people live and they enjoy looking at the ocean.

"It's a big call - you can easily say it, it's harder to come up with solutions. It's harder to come up with solutions."

John and Ann Francis from Coledale also felt strongly.

"It will be visual vandalism," Mr Francis said.

"I'm all for wind generated power but not there. I think it would be a disaster.

"Inland would seem to be a much better bet, easy to connect to the grid, easy to maintain.

"What effect might it have on the surf here?"

Ms Francis agreed, saying there were vast amounts of desert in Australia where renewable energy infrastructure could be built.

"This particular area which is so close to Sydney, it's a beautiful place for people to come down and have a holiday," she said.

"That [would] obviously affect property prices, which maybe a lot of people haven't even thought about."

This is the latest iteration of BlueFloat's South Pacific Offshore Wind Project, preferred to the previous proposal, extending from waters off Kiama to Jervis Bay.

Public opposition from people in Kiama was part of the reason for the shift north, but BlueFloat has found a population just as protective of its ocean.

At the Thirroul Surf Club information session, David Havyatt was just as supportive of the plan as the previous citizens were against it.

"This is what we can do in the Illawarra to help save the planet," he said.

"There'll be more than one wind farm eventually, and one pity is that we've got individual firms coming out and talking about the impact on the community, whereas what we need to have is somebody talking about what the whole impact is from whole renewable energy zone.

"Ultimately, we should be getting to the point where the community is embracing the offshore wind the same way as we embrace the fact we're a coal mining zone."

Colin La Flamme, who was up from Dapto to find out more, said people may be more accepting if it was further out to sea.

"Generally I think wind farms are a good thing and I think we're going need it for the port to get electric steel made, or green hydrogen," he said.

"Some people like them - I quite like them.

"But for the people who don't, who just want that endless, endless blue with lots of boats on it, maybe it would help them to kind of come to terms with it a bit more [if it was further out].

"They wouldn't probably oppose it as much if the impact was tiny."

BlueFloat's country manager Nick Sankey said there had been similar opinions raised at sessions this week in Shellharbour, Wollongong and Thirroul, with between 50 and 80 people at each.

"There's definitely people who support renewable energy, they want to see large scale build-out of renewable energy," he said.

"There's also people excited about the potential for economic benefits to the region and the job opportunities - and there's people concerned about [the] visual amenity asking how far offshore we are and why we're based in that area," he said.

"A lot of people are asking about the whales and what we're going to be doing about analysing the impact on the whales - if there is an impact, and what's the offshore experience.

"We're really enthusiastic about pushing forward with the project and really looking forward to the government declaring a zone for offshore wind in the Illawarra region."