Star of the South: Measuring potential impacts on ocean waves and currents

RPS is providing environmental services and planning expertise to support Australia’s first offshore wind project – Star of the South – which aims to harness the strong ocean winds typical of the Bass Strait, create a clean energy hub in Victoria, and bring greater diversity, reliability, and security to the national electricity network.

Wind turbine generators (WTGs) have the potential to influence the metocean climate, both directly via their physical presence and indirectly via the alteration of the wind climate acting on the ocean surface downwind. Following an early assessment of the sensitivity of ocean patterns to various WTG design and layout options, and with the aid of data from a network of wave and current meters deployed across the project area, RPS has developed detailed hydrodynamic and wave models that have been applied to produce multi-decade hindcast data sets offering a comprehensive characterisation of ocean waves and currents in both pre- and post-development states – including consideration of end-of-century climate change projections.

These robust model data sets have been used to support an ongoing assessment of the potential sensitivity of coastal processes to the Star of the South development, examining important shoreline areas from Corner Inlet to Golden Beach.