Article by Ryan Cropp, courtesy of the Australian Financial Review.
02. 07. 2025
Labor’s plans to establish a nationwide offshore wind industry have been dealt a fresh blow after Norwegian oil and gas giant Equinor confirmed it had walked away from one of its last remaining Australian projects.
The Norwegian multinational has had a majority interest in the Bass Offshore Wind Energy, or BOWE, project off the northeast Tasmanian coast since December 2022, when it joined forces with local developer Nexsphere.
However, Nexsphere is now looking for a new backer after Equinor quietly withdrew its support in early 2025. It is the third time Equinor has walked away from an Australian project, following earlier withdrawals of its plans in Eden and the Illawarra.
The move casts fresh doubt over Equinor’s only other Australian offshore development – the Novocastrian wind farm off the coast of Newcastle in NSW – which has been in limbo for several months because the company is yet to accept the government’s pre-election feasibility licence offer.
Feasibility licences allow project developers to conduct preliminary investigations ahead of commercial licence applications. Licence owners pay an annual fee of around $1 million to maintain their licences.
Nexsphere and Equinor confirmed the end of their tie-up in a one-line joint-statement.
“Equinor and Nexsphere have made the decision not to proceed together with the Bass Offshore Wind Energy project (BOWE) in Tasmania,” the companies said.
Equinor has wound back many of its global renewables investments over the past 12 months as it refocuses on its core oil and gas business. In February it announced it would lower its targets for new clean energy projects by about a third.
References to Equinor have been scrubbed from BOWE’s website, while Equinor has scrubbed old press releases relating to the project, which had appeared online as recently as March.
“Equinor’s ambition in Australia is to apply their industrial offshore experience and broad energy competence to create long-lasting value and supply of homegrown renewable energy by working closely with strong local partners like Nexsphere,” BOWE’s website said in March.
“Equinor’s involvement in BOWE secures world-leading expertise in the design, planning and delivery of what will be one of Tasmania’s largest renewable energy projects,” it said.
BOWE had originally planned to build a 100-turbine wind farm off the northeastern coast of Tasmania, but its owners have since opened the door to a relocation after Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen declared a federal offshore wind zone near Devonport in December 2024.
If completed, BOWE would create up to 1500 megawatts of clean energy – which it claims is enough to power 325,000 homes and save up to 2 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually.
In a separate statement, Nexsphere said it was still committed to the BOWE project – which is now “100 per cent Australian-owned” – and would “work with major international offshore wind partners make the proposal a reality”.
The project did not receive a feasibility licence to operate in the zone during the recent window for applications, which ended in April, but Nexsphere said the company was “progressing” an application with the federal government.
Offshore wind has the potential to generate huge amounts of power, but it is still a nascent technology in Australia and not expected to contribute to the government’s near-term target to have 82 per cent of the grid powered by renewables by 2030.
The government is attempting to interest major renewables investors in developing six offshore wind zones in areas adjacent to large industrial facilities, such as Wollongong’s steelworks and aluminium smelters in the Hunter and south-west Victoria.
However, commercial interest in many of the zones has been poor, with Equinor’s Novocastrian wind farm the only remaining project in the Hunter and Bluefloat Energy’s lone Illawarra project also in serious doubt.
Prior to the federal election, Bowen agreed to pause the feasibility licence application process in the Illawarra at Bluefloat’s request. The company’s US private equity owner, Quantum Capital Group, reportedly sought interest from potential buyers in June last year.
