Atlas Professionals has established a renewables division in Australia to support the development of the country’s first offshore wind farm.
As plans for the Star of the South offshore wind farm progress, Atlas said it wanted to ensure it has a dedicated renewables unit in place to support the project development.
“When Atlas discussed the chance to take on the renewables business, I thought this would be a positive opportunity moving forward. We are keen to add renewables into the Atlas portfolio in Australia and New Zealand, which is something very new here with the development of the first offshore wind farm,” said Larry Thorstensen , the newly-appointed Operations Manager Renewables.
“As the project gets closer we want to establish our renewables team and as we get more of an understanding of what’s going to be required, we can leverage on our own internal experience, as well as that of the larger Atlas group, in providing a comprehensive service offering to our clients.”
Atlas currently has 1,000 people working offshore in Australia in the marine, drilling, catering and seismic sectors. According to Thorstensen, the company can potentially be involved in marine, catering and manning on board the installation vessels and can provide maintenance crews, such as crane operators, commissioning engineers, surveyors and ROV pilots.
The 2GW Star of the South project is expected to comprise up to 250 turbines at a 574km2 area located 10-25km off the south coast of Gippsland, Victoria. It is being developed by the Victoria-based Offshore Energy and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).
Recently, the non-profit organization Friends of the Earth Australia announced a petition urging Energy Minister Angus Taylor to support the project as it is being detained by the federal Coalition government.