Australia’s pioneering offshore wind project – the 2.2GW Star of the South – has named Charles Rattray as its new chief executive.
Rattray, a veteran of the energy and finance sectors who was most recently managing director at Nexif Energy, will take the lead role at Star of the South in August, succeeding Casper Frost Thorhauge who led the project for almost three years and replacing acting CEO Erin Coldham, who returns to her post as chief development officer.
Led by global developer Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), Star of the South is on track to be Australia’s first offshore wind farm, with plans well advanced to deploy up to 200 turbines off Victoria, helping the state meet its goals to take power from at least 2GW of offshore wind by 2032 and 9GW by 2040.
Investment fund Cbus Super last week bought 10% of Star of the South, which is poised to lead an offshore wind boom in Australian waters thanks to landmark national legislation to underpin the sector and ambitious state renewable energy targets.
Star of the South chairman, Thomas Wibe Poulsen said Rattray’s “experience working with new technologies and developing projects in the Australian market will strongly complement the specialist offshore wind expertise in the team”.
