Offshore wind could power aluminium smelter – Bowen

The Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen has confirmed the possibility that power from a recently declared wind farm precinct offshore from Victoria could power Alcoa’s Portland Aluminium smelter.

Bowen has made a preliminary decision on Alinta Energy and Parkwind’s Spinifex Offshore Wind Farm in the Southern Ocean Offshore Wind Zone, making them the preferred tenderer to build a wind farm to provide 10 percent of Victoria’s energy needs.

The 200 square kilometre could produce more than a gigawatt of electricity, enough for 650,000 homes.

Interviewed on ABC radio Bowen said the smelter, a joint venture between Alcoa of Australia, CITIC and Marubeni Aluminium Australia, was in discussions with the project’s proponents.

Bowen said: “And that’s a good thing, because Portland smelter is a very important employer in regional Victoria and, you know, they’ve got to get their energy from somewhere.

“And increasingly, smelters, who are very, very big energy users, will need to show consumers and insurers and financiers that they have a renewable energy source, and it needs to be constant.

“And offshore wind is constant – it’s always windy and that’s very important for somewhere like the Portland smelter.”

Bowen said the wind zone could also supply energy into the grid, supplying anywhere from South Australia, to Tasmania and Queensland.

The Portland smelter has an annual nameplate production capacity of 358,000 metric tons a year and consumes 20 percent of Victoria’s electricity production.

Originally conceived to provide base demand for Victorial brown coal power stations, wind power would immediately decarbonise aluminium production.

Bowen said it would be the early 2030s before power could flow from the wind project, and it wouldn’t happen ‘overnight’.

“We’re building an industry from scratch.

“Offshore wind has existed around the world for more than 30 years in Europe, but this is brand new for Australia.

“There’s a lot of work to do.”

Picture: Alcoa/Portland aluminium smelter