An Australian renewable energy and storage developer has unveiled plans to build a major new transmission line in Victoria that would do away with traditional poles and wires – and the social licence issues that come with them – by installing an underground cable along a major freeway.
The Syncline Community Cable, named for its developer Syncline Energy, proposes to bury a 265 km high-voltage, direct current (HVDC) link running from the Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub (MREH) battery to the Mallee region in the Victoria’s North.
Syncline says the subterranean cable would be capable of moving more than 25% of Victoria’s electricity and would deliver the essential north-south link that is needed in Victoria to support a major scale-up in renewables.
This would include opening up the renewable energy zone in Victoria’s north-west, identified late last year by VicGrid as where the majority of Victoria’s future energy generation will likely be built.
Phil Galloway, Syncline Energy managing director, says the company has been working up the project for the past three years, which it sees as a unique opportunity to develop a transmission line with minimal impact on communities and minimal impact on the environment.
“I’ve got two focuses in this project,” Galloway tells Renew Economy. “One is getting power prices down, and the second is doing it in a way that doesn’t break communities, and particularly rural communities.”
Galloway, whose experience in the industry most recently includes the origination of the massive, $1.5 billion Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub – an up to 1,200MW and 2,400MWh big battery that was bought by Equis and is now part owned by the Victorian government – says regional communities are increasingly lumping transmission, “which they hate,” in with renewables.
“Farmers who might otherwise be happy to host a solar farm or a wind farm now feel that it’s going to ruin the lives of people in their community who have to suffer the towers.
“It’s now all conflated with renewables and and that’s a real shame. Undergrounding where it makes sense to do – and it won’t work in every location – is a way of starting to break that nexus down,” he says.
It is generally thought that underground cables are more expensive that traditional poles and wires, but soaring costs has blown the budgets of many major projects.
Syncline says it has done more than three years of grid modelling, route mapping, on-farm discussions and “careful ecology and cultural heritage work” to find an optimal micro-sited route for the HVDC cable. It has also, it says, engaged with all the farmers along the route and signed agreements for most of the cable’s length.
“We have met with each farmer, got to know their operations and developed a strategy to address their specific biosecurity, access or hydrology concerns,” Galloway says.
“Farmers have an intimate knowledge of their land, and by building trust and clearly explaining the design and construction approach, they have provided invaluable information to help avoid challenging geology as well as areas with significant ecology and cultural heritage values.”
The proposed line would run for 100 km of its length along the median strip of the Calder Freeway, while the remaining 165km of the route is mapped across flat grazing and cropping land west of Bendigo, taking in around 50 farms and requiring just nine trees to be cleared.
The easement above the line where it runs through farmland is expected to span 8 metres and, according to Galloway, would still be able to be used for most current farming practices, such as sheep grazing and cropping.
“There are some agricultural practices that you can’t do – you can’t do [deep ripping] … and you can’t build a house on top of the easement. But really, for most of the route it’s sheep farming and cropping, and we run the cables mostly along people’s fence lines.”
On costs, Galloway says that compared to the longer, more costly and delayed overhead transmission alternatives, SCC would deliver lower power prices, a more robust network, and faster implementation.
“Due to a decade of land access delays in Victoria and cost blow-outs in other states, overhead powerlines are just too expensive and won’t be available to plug this specific transmission gap,” he says.
“A lot has changed since WRL [Western Renewables Link] and VNI West were proposed, and the VTP [Victorian Transmission Plan] creates an opportunity for Victoria to pivot to a more robust network design at a lower cost to electricity users. SCC can be a key enabler for that pivot.”
Syncline is also planning to fund the project using private debt and equity. It has engaged Lazard Australia to complete a capital raise for the project, which it believes will be well supported by Australia’s superannuation and funds and infrastructure funds.
Ultimately, the decision on whether the project goes ahead or not will largely depend on VicGrid, the state government body assigned with the task of finding the best way to bolster Victoria’s electricity networks to meet its renewables energy targets.
“The cost of overhead transmission has just spiraled out of control in other states,” Galloways says, “So the VicGrid initiative and the Victorian Transmission Plan is really important and a great opportunity for the state to start with a clean sheet of paper.
“Syncline has developed an alternative that is optimised for underground construction and based on our tendered prices, we think the cost is less than the other overhead transmission options for this part of the network.
“VicGrid is carefully considering these issues and will release a draft Victorian Transmission Plan (VTP) in the coming months.”
