The Illawarra offshore wind zone is dormant, not dead. The difference is worth getting right

What the declaration did, and still does

On 15 June 2024, after a 94-day public consultation that drew 14,211 submissions, the federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy declared the Illawarra offshore wind area under the offshore electricity infrastructure framework. The declaration marks out where offshore wind projects may one day be proposed: 1,022 square kilometres of Commonwealth waters, at least 20 kilometres offshore, running from Wombarra in the north to Kiama in the south. The department's stated reasons for choosing this stretch of coast: proximity to high electricity demand, including the Port Kembla steelworks, the potential for Port Kembla to service the industry, and the region's ageing coal-fired power stations.

A declaration is step one of a long ladder. It builds nothing and approves nothing. What it does is open the door to the next step: feasibility licences, which let a developer spend years studying a patch of the zone before any project can even be proposed for approval.

What lapsed

Applications for feasibility licences in the Illawarra zone were open for two months, from 17 June to 15 August 2024. The department's page states the outcome in five words: "No feasibility licences were awarded." The only publicly known applicant, BlueFloat Energy, formally withdrew its application, a fact confirmed in January by the region's three federal MPs, Alison Byrnes, Fiona Phillips and Carol Berry, in a joint statement. Their statement attributes BlueFloat's decision to commercial reasons, driven by global pressures including supply chain constraints, and notes the company was withdrawing from the industry worldwide, including surrendering its Gippsland feasibility licence.

So the current status, in the department's own words, is: "No feasibility licences granted." There is no developer, no application under assessment, and no project.

What is still live

Two things, and they are the reason "dead" is the wrong word.

• The zone itself. The MPs' joint statement puts it directly: The declared offshore wind zone in the Illawarra remains in effect and could open for applications for feasibility licences again should there be competitive interest. Undoing a declaration would be its own formal process; nobody has started one.
• A narrower licence path. The same statement notes that research and demonstration licences are now open for application, covering floating wind, wave and tidal technologies. That is a much smaller doorway than a feasibility licence, but it is a live one.

How far out it would be

Because the visibility question drives so much of the local argument, the department publishes the distance from shore to the declared area, point by point. The nearest edge is 20 to 25 kilometres out along almost the whole coast.

What would change the story

One document: a new feasibility licence application. The zone reopening for applications would be announced through the federal offshore infrastructure machinery, and any applicant would become a matter of public record. Until that happens, every "the turbines are coming" and every "it's cancelled" you hear is running ahead of the paperwork. We watch the zone's page and the registrar's processes each cycle, and when the status line changes from its current five words, we will report it the day we see it.