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Australia has significant offshore wind resources that can support ever-increasing power demand and hence provide a long-term contribution to the net-zero target by 2050. Although some offshore wind farm projects are proposed in Australia, the industry is not mature enough to justify the benefits and display economic opportunities. More specifically, the techno-economic analysis of offshore wind energy has not been systematically mapped in Australia. Therefore, the investigation of the spatial variation of technical feasibility and economic potential of offshore wind is vital to identify the potential regions and to develop strategies for future offshore wind farm developments in Australia. This paper presents detailed mappings of the techno-economic potential of offshore wind energy in Victoria-Tasmania's exclusive economic zone. Offshore wind energy resources are assessed in the paper in terms of energy availability and variability and the feasibility of various offshore wind technologies is investigated, including turbines, foundation types and transmission topologies. In addition, the high-fidelity life-cycle cost models and two innovative evaluation matrices are developed to assess the economic potential of offshore energy farms in South-eastern Australia. The impact of local power system regulation costs and future carbon prices on the viability of offshore wind is also investigated in this paper. It is concluded that the detailed mapping approach and analysis in the paper can provide a systematic tool for industry partners, investors and policymakers at the pre-planning stage of developing offshore renewable energy systems. • The technical feasibility of offshore wind is mapped under various constraints. • The novel LACE and high-fidelity LCC assessment models are developed. • The techno-economic potential is systemically mapped in South-eastern Australia. • The impacts of electricity market regulation and future carbon prices are studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offshore wind and wave power are abundant energy sources and could provide long term contributions to our future energy supply. The combined exploration of wind and wave power has been proposed as an effective way to mitigate the non-negligible power intermittency and variability of offshore renewables. However, the assessments of wind and wave resources have been developed separately in Australia, and the potential of diversified wind and wave power has not been studied systematically. This study investigates offshore wind and wave energy sources in multiple locations around the Australian coastline and their potentials for integration in terms of energy availability, power variability, coherence and correlation, and annual and seasonal variability over the last seven years. In addition, wind and wave mixed energy farms are studied using commercial wind turbine models and various wave energy converter prototype models. The energy availability, power smoothing effect, capacity factor and downtime of these mixed energy farms are also discussed. Moreover, this paper proposes an effective matrix for assessing the potential of hybrid energy farms in multiple sites in terms of power availability, power variability and combination performance and the sensitivity of selecting various wave energy converter (WEC) models is also investigated to provide a general guideline for future work. The regional comparative results indicate that the swell wave dominated sites in Western and Southern Australia present merits for combining wind and wave power, while wind–wave dominated regions, such as Eastern Australia, are not preferable for this diversified system. It can be found that power variability and downtime can be significantly reduced for the specific wind–wave capacity mix if a lower correlation or longer lag time exists between the two renewables. The results also illustrate that the combinations with different WEC systems present varying benefits in the different locations in Australia. • Wind and wave energy resources are assessed in Australian region. • A wave identification system is designed for hybrid exploration. • A matrix to assess the potential of combined energy farm is proposed. • Sensitivity of WEC selection to the combined energy farm is investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants can make a significant contribution to renewable energy supply in many regions of the world. Several bottom-up engineering performance models for CSP plants have been developed. However, they require the capacity of the plant to be known. In whole-of-grid optimization models, the capacity of the plants is an optimization variable and therefore not known in advance. In this case, researchers have taken a simplified modelling approach that overestimated CSP performance, especially for low-DNI conditions. In this paper, we offer a novel density-based engineering modelling approach in which CSP performance is determined independently of the capacity of the power plant, and which can be used in whole-of-grid optimization models. We investigate a case study of the site of the new Aurora CSP project in Port Augusta, South Australia, to be one of the world's largest solar thermal power plants by 2020. Using a Geographical Information System (GIS)-grid representation of Australia, we compare CSP performance resulting from a simplified model with our new approach. • A novel density-based engineering modelling approach for Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants. • CSP performance is determined independently of the capacity of the power plant. • The approach can be used in whole-of-grid optimisation models. • We investigate the site of the new Aurora CSP project in Port Augusta, South Australia to be constructed by 2020. • The new approach is compared to the simplified description of CSP performance, using a GIS-grid representation of Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]