The cost of building a contentious overhead transmission line project in Victoria is expected to nearly double, triggering calls to cancel it.<\/p>\n
VNI West will run 475 kilometres from New South Wales to Victoria, connecting the Energy Connect transmission line that is under construction in NSW to the yet-to-be-built Western Renewables Link in Victoria.<\/p>\n
Previously estimated to cost $3.9 billion, yesterday the Australian Energy Market Operator increased its cost estimate to $7.6 billion, and potentially as much as $11.4 billion.<\/p>\n
When complete, it will transmit renewable energy between the two states, and the Victorian government argues it is necessary to “keep the lights on” and push down power prices.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Plans for new transmission lines for renewable energy are unpopular in farming communities. (ABC Rural: Angus Verley)<\/p>\n
Cost blowout no surprise<\/p>\n
Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) president Brett Hosking said the cost blowout came as no surprise.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s what farmers said right from the start, that it felt like the numbers were underdone,” Mr Hosking said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a massive increase and we’re not at the end of it.”<\/p>\n
Brett Hosking says the cost blowout is no surprise. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Mr Hosking accused project developer Transmission Company Victoria of failing to engage properly with affected landowners.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, the poor engagement and the poor management of the project has resulted in delays, and will continue to result in delays until we see a massive turnaround in the attitudes of the proponents,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got to have a very serious rethink about the viability of the project.”<\/p>\n
Hundreds of farmers travelled to Melbourne this week to rally against projects including VNI West. (ABC Rural: Angus Verley)<\/p>\n
There have been numerous farmer-led protests against VNI West, including in regional towns and on the steps of parliament.<\/p>\n
“The farmers weren’t born protesters. They’ve been created as protesters because of poor engagement from these companies,” Mr Hosking said.VNI needed ‘to keep the lights on’<\/p>\n
Transmission Company Victoria was not available for an interview, but in a statement, spokesperson Claire Cass said the cost blowout was due to “inflationary pressures that are affecting major infrastructure projects across Australia and the globe”.<\/p>\n
“This update reflects the reality of delivering a vital and complex, large-scale energy infrastructure project today \u2014 balancing our obligations to landholders, traditional owners and local communities,” Ms Cass said.<\/p>\n
Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said, despite the inflated price tag, the benefit of VNI West would outweigh the cost, rejecting any suggestion the future of the project was uncertain.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lily D’Ambrosio says VNI West is needed to “keep the lights on”. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
“It is a fact that without building transmission projects \u2026 that deliver that cheap, reliable electricity, bills would actually go up and our energy supply would be in danger,” Ms D’Ambrosio said.<\/p>\n
“If we want to keep the lights on, we need to build transmission.”<\/p>\n
Ms D’Ambrosio said the government would closely monitor the cost of transmission projects.<\/p>\n
“I will always hold proponents of projects to account on costs,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cost of building a contentious overhead transmission line project in Victoria is expected to nearly double, triggering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,33053,99,2572,4204,4217,8146,33055,33054,33052],"class_list":{"0":"post-36535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-brett-hosking","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-energy","13":"tag-governments","14":"tag-infrastructure","15":"tag-renewable-energy","16":"tag-transmission","17":"tag-vff","18":"tag-vni-west"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}