Whales may become massive issue for Illawarra offshore wind farm

But the number of people raising the issue means that any attempt by offshore wind developer BlueFloat Energy to operate off the Illawarra coast will have to carefully assess the impact.

At an information session in Thirroul this week, Coledale resident Ann Francis was one of those worried about how migrating cetaceans would cope with 105 200m-high floating wind turbines 15km off the coast of Wollongong.

Read more: Thirroul tells wind farmer they love the ocean just how it is

"I know that there are certain numbers of whales that come down in very close proximity to where the [project] is going to be - and other creatures," she said.

BlueFloat country manager Nick Sankey has assured Illawarra residents environmental impacts, including on whales, would be thoroughly assessed.

He said whales managed to negotiate various obstacles offshore, and the turbines would be 1.5km apart - but everything was locally specific.

"What we need to do is try and understand well is where are the major whale migration pathways which we know are up and down the NSW coastline?" he said.

"We have to know, what is the impact - do the whales navigate around the infrastructure?

"Each turbine is about 1.5km apart from each other, so we do have significant distance between the tours.

"Whales are intelligent animals - they navigate around a whole lot of constraints and man-made issues. They navigate around ships moored out there.

"So we're expecting that they will they will navigate probably through the site area and around the site area."

BlueFloat concluded its third community drop-in session in the Wollongong area on Thursday, with Mr Sankey saying there was a range of views expressed at each.