DIRECT Infrastructure created to pursue Australia’s offshore wind.
About DIRECT Infrastructure
DIRECT Infrastructure is an Australian-based specialist offshore wind developer, at the forefront of Australia and New Zealand’s emerging offshore wind industry.
Co-founded by Brendan M. Warn and Jacob Jonker, DIRECT Infrastructure (“DIRECT”) has been created to deliver large-scale industrial energy users and energy retailers scalable, economic and sustainable power from offshore wind.
DIRECT is partnering with like-minded, ESG infrastructure investors and industrial energy users to achieve net-zero. In Australia, DIRECT is initially delivering three large-scale floating offshore wind generation and storage projects, with 6 to 9 GW combined capacity. DIRECT anticipates additional adjacent geographic markets to follow.
Offshore wind-generated power is forecast to be an economically competitive source of renewable energy by the later half of this decade in Australia. Offshore wind is commercially operated at a large scale in Europe and the UK and is rapidly expanding globally. It is expected to be a vital part of Australia’s clean energy transition and an important driver for the decarbonisation of industrial and manufacturing processes.
BloombergNEF (“BNEF”) forecasts the offshore wind sector (fixed-bottom and floating platforms) will exceed 10 GW of installations in 2022. The emerging floating offshore wind technology has attracted hundreds of millions in new research funding in 2022 as well as securing billions in supply chain investment. BNEF currently forecasts that the global cumulative floating offshore capacity will grow to be more than 5 GW by 2030 and approximately 21 GW by 2035.
About Australia’s Offshore Electricity Infrastructure (OEI) Legislation
The Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Act 2021 (OEI Act) commenced on 2 June 2022 and provides an important framework for introducing offshore wind generation to Australia's renewable sector, allowing developers to take the first step towards developing these projects.