Radical changes made to New England REZ transmission route, steers away from Barnaby Joyce property

EnergyCo has made a drastic change to the transmission corridor leading to the New England renewable energy zone (REZ), cutting 98 properties from the study area – and also steering away from a property owned by the family of anti-renewable energy campaigner Barnaby Joyce.

The new route is the second change this year and will result in “safer and more efficient” construction and reflect community feedback, EnergyCo said in statement on Thursday. 

The new study area swings north in a more direct line to the REZ and now takes in the whole bottom portion of the zone and joins the original route at the Skye Ridge wind project.

The original route twitched west and north over Nundle, where the heavily contested Hills of Gold wind project is still subject to a court challenge by the Tamworth Regional Council, and branched into two prongs just outside the REZ with one bisecting the proposed 51-turbine Bendemeer wind project. 

The new 3km wide study area, in blue, is a radical change from the original proposal. Image: EnergyCo

The new route also avoids the rugged land near where the Joyce family’s Rutherglen farm is located, and where according to media reports the federal MP has been living with his new wife Vikki Campion and two children. 

Joyce has branded transmission lines as “cobwebs of filth” and the Daily Telegraph reported last year that he faced the prospect of having part of his land appropriated for a transmission line as part of the REZ. Renew Economy reached out to Joyce’s office but did not hear back before publication.

Metis Energy, the owner of the proposed 316 megawatt (MW) Bendemeer wind project, says it will benefit because the original study area suggested EnergyCo was looking at the same parcels of land where Metis Energy wanted to put many of its turbines. 

Paul Benchley, one of the landowners hosting the Bendemeer wind and solar project, says they were expecting to lose as many as six turbines from the overall project.

“It’s a major relief. Finally common sense has prevailed on the routing of the EnergyCo line,” he told Renew Economy.

“The line is much needed for the development of New England and Australia and we fully support it, but the route of the line has got to be done sensibly and we believe this new change is sensible for us.”

He says the western fork through the Bendemeer wind project was to be a redundancy line, but the rugged Moonbi ranges to the south made it both a tricky route and a bushfire risk.

Big changes were already made to the route in March, where it was shifted around the Dungowan and Glenbawn areas near Tamworth to dodge lifestyle properties and make more use of state land.

EnergyCo hopes the new route will result in less private land being needed for access tracks because the region is less rugged. 

New England REZ project director Doug Parris says the new study corridor avoids the Chaffey Dam and Lake Glenbawn, both used for bushfire waterbombing aircraft, and crosses less bushfire-prine land. 

“Building in a more accessible area will make it easier to build and will require less earthworks and excavation to construct the transmission tower foundations and less private land will be impacted by access tracks to get to the towers,” he said in a statement. 

“That means fewer trucks on local roads and reduced noise impacts on surrounding communities.   

“Route refinements are a necessary part of delivering large, complex infrastructure in a way that balances community, technical, environmental and economic factors.”

The New England REZ is expected to be the biggest in New South Wales (NSW), hosting up to 8 GW of new projects.

The new transmission line is the critical link from north of Armidale to the Bayswater power station in the Hunter Valley  to deliver that output to the state’s biggest load centres around Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong.

EnergyCo is managing the rollout of at least five REZs across the state that will host the bulk of wind, solar, battery and pumped hydro projects that will replace its ageing coal fired generators.

The final transmission route into the New England REZ will take in a 140m wide strip somewhere within the new study area, made intentionally wide at 3km to give EnergyCo plenty of leeway to decide where to put the lines themselves.

A narrower 1km-wide zone will be announced next year after consultation with some 100 landowners along the new path.

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