Victoria has been warned against its bold offshore wind plan. 

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has set a target to generate about 20 per cent of its energy needs from offshore wind within the next decade.

It is a bold plan, given that Australia does not have any offshore wind farms. However, the Victorian government has already put up $40 million to fund early work on three major offshore wind proposals.

But the Australian Energy Council (AEC) head of policy and research, Ben Skinner, says the state’s offshore wind projects make no sense. 

“[The Australian Energy Market Operator] know about as much about the cost of building these things as anybody,” he said.

“They had not anticipated that there was any market requirement to build offshore in Australia, which makes sense because it roughly costs about twice per megawatt hour to produce as producing onshore wind.

“You do it in places like Northern Europe where there is real difficulty with availability of land, but you don’t do it when there’s plenty of land around, and that’s why AEMO had never recommended it and why you would probably not see the major involvement of offshore wind in a genuine market arrangement, and that’s actually sensible.”

The AEC is a lobby for 20 of Australia’s major electricity and gas providers. Coal power still accounts for about 60 per cent of Australian energy needs.