WRL is a proposed 190-kilometre overhead high-voltage electricity transmission line that will carry renewable energy from Bulgana in western Victoria to Sydenham in Melbourne’s north-west.
VNI West – the Victoria New South Wales Interconnector West project – is a proposed high-capacity double-
circuit overhead transmission line to form a conduit between the Western Renewables Link project at Bulgana, east of Stawell, to New South Wales.
The project has ballooned from an original cost of $2-billion to at least $7.6-billion, with some predicting it could blow out to $11-billion.
Under the Coalition plan, VNI West and WRL will be paused while the transmission review is undertaken and alternative options explored.
Concurrent with the review, which will also consider Renewable Energy Zones, the Coalition will also establish new urban solar parks to encourage solar and battery installations on commercial and industrial rooftops in urban areas, to generate renewable power closer to where it is needed.
The Nationals Victorian leader Danny O’Brien said energy experts predict urban solar parks could supply as much as 25 per cent of demand and reduce the need for as many transmission lines criss-crossing farmland.
Mr O’Brien said the VNI West project had no social licence and Labor had increasingly turned to harsh legislative changes, such as fines for farmers refusing access to their land, compulsory acquisition before planning and environment studies have been undertaken and the removal of third-party appeals to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
“The Labor government has ridden roughshod over regional communities with its renewables-at-all-cost energy policy,” he said.
“We will give farmers their rights back while pausing projects like VNI West and properly examining the alternatives.”
Nationals Member for Lowan Emma Kealy said landholders across the state had seen their property rights taken away as the Labor government aggressively pursued its ideology-driven energy policy over scientific evidence.
“Our plan includes a halt to the VNI West project and a rigorous assessment process for all major transmission projects to ensure they meet community and cost expectations while protecting agricultural prime land,” she said.
“Halting VNI West and establishing an urban solar feed-in tariff will minimise land use conflict while saving Victorians significant costs on their energy bills at a time when cost of living is already biting hard.
“Victorian farmers have been denied a voice in Victoria’s energy transition for far too long.”
Victorian Farmers Federation acting president Peter Star welcomed the Coalition’s announcement but said the project should be scrapped entirely and the VFF would keep fighting until that happened.
“The reckless VNI West and WRL transmission lines are failed projects that threaten to tear generational farming families apart and destroy the best farmland in the country,” he said.
“This pause is a well-overdue acknowledgment that these projects are deeply flawed, but a pause alone is not enough.”
Shadow minister for energy and emissions reduction, David Davis, said the plan would deliver renewable energy where it was needed.
“There are countless hectares of available roof space for solar and battery installations across the warehouses and factories of Melbourne and that is where we need the electricity,” he said.
“We will support these developments, which will minimise land use conflict and deliver clean power where it’s needed though facilitating the designation of urban solar parks driven by an early expression of interest process, allowing proponents to propose for specific urban solar parks.”
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