An Industrial Strategy for Domestic Manufacturing of Onshore and Offshore Wind Energy Towers and Equipment
Author
Australia could create more than 4300 quality direct jobs by making its own wind towers instead of importing them, according to new research by the Centre for Future Work. At present, all wind towers installed in Australia are imported from overseas with most coming from China.
The report, by Professor Phil Toner (Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney) found a domestic wind energy sector would generate:
● 4,350 ongoing jobs in wind tower manufacturing, and thousands more in input industries, especially steel
● Output of over 800 towers per year, with cumulative value of up to $15 billion over the next 17 years
● Incremental demand for up to 700,000 tonnes of Australian-made steel per year, creating a foundation for the recapitalization of Australian steel plants with carbon-free technologies
● Avoiding 2.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions thanks to reduced sea shipping of imported wind towers
Wind energy manufacturing represents a prime opportunity to apply the new policy tools of the federal government’s Future Made in Australia manufacturing strategy.
The report makes several recommendations, including:
- The federal government in co-operation with state governments and industry should commission an engineering and financial study into the optimal location, plant size, plant playout, advanced production equipment and minimum scale of output required to establish competitive tower manufacturing on the east coast of Australia (where onshore and offshore wind farm activity will be intense for decades).
- State and federal government local content plans for renewable energy generation should prescribe specific proportions of domestic content in private and public procurement of wind energy equipment – harmonised across states to improve efficiency in domestic wind tower manufacturing.
- A public-private planning authority should be established to strengthen linkages between investments in renewable energy supply and parallel investments in green steel production, using steady demand for wind tower manufacturing (and resulting supply of non-carbon electricity) to validate investments in decarbonised steel production.
- The Scope 3 emissions embodied in imported towers (both in offshore manufacturing and then shipping of those towers to Australia) should be fully reflected in decisions regarding sourcing.