VicGrid is calling for feedback from communities and landholders, after setting out a “broad study area” for the transmission line and onshore grid connection hub that will deliver energy generated by Gippsland offshore wind farms to the Latrobe Valley.
A notice from Engage Victoria published on Friday says the study area and preferred connection hub starts around 6km from the coast near Giffard and travels northwest past Stradbroke West to Willung, across to Flynns Creek and then to the Loy Yang Power Station.
VicGrid says the proposed transmission technology will be a double circuit 330 kV or 500 kV overhead transmission line, after underground lines were ruled out due to a number of challenges, including cost, engineering complexity, procurement and timing.
“Our analysis found an overhead line would cost between approximately $700 million and $1.5 billion, while undergrounding would cost between approximately $2 billion and $4.5 billion, with the extra expense largely due to the additional infrastructure construction costs required,” the notice says.
VicGrid also says it has avoided major townships when mapping the transmission study area and aimed for a “lower proportion of private land” to be in its pathway, following “strong feedback from the community” to minimise impacts to agricultural land and maximise alignment with existing infrastructure.
“Further on-the-ground investigations and engagement with landholders, First Peoples and local communities are needed to help reduce impacts on agricultural land and on important environmental and cultural sites,” the notice says.
“We want to talk with local communities and landholders about the Study Area and next steps. We will be holding community drop-in sessions around Gippsland and seeking to contact landholders directly to meet with them.”
VicGrid, which took over transmission planning from the Australian Energy Market Operator last June, has been under pressure from the renewables industry to get cracking on the infrastructure needed to connect the nation’s first lot of offshore wind farms to the grid.
Charles Rattray, CEO of the 2.2 gigawatt Star of the South project – largely expected to be Australia’s first completed offshore wind farm – has warned that no developers will start building anything until the onshore grid infrastructure plans are firm.
“The most important thing to understand is you can’t start construction on an offshore wind farm until you have certainty about that transmission asset. When you have the transmission in place, we can start building,” Rattray told the Australian Wind Energy conference last July.
“The major turbine suppliers, cable providers but also capital providers have any number of options of where to deploy their turbines, where to lay their cables, where they’re going to spend their capital,” he says.
“Australia needs to be moving quickly, we need to be making sure we give certainty to suppliers about the size of the industry, and when industry is going to be constructed. So all of those suppliers of turbines and cables and capital, they understand the pipeline.”
