VNI West: Victoria sets out preferred route for contentious new transmission line

Transmission Company Victoria has released its preferred design for the 240km Victorian component of the controversial VNI West transmission project.

The project, a second high-voltage transmission link between Victoria and NSW to shore up renewable energy supply, has been fiercely opposed by landowners and communities in the project’s path in central northwest Victoria.

The proposed route is roughly 240 kilometres long and 70 metres wide, running from Bulgana to Tragowel, near Kerang in the state’s north, before crossing into NSW and connecting to the Transgrid network. 

“A preferred easement for VNI West has been identified based on findings from field studies and technical and engineering assessments,” a Transmission Company Victoria (TCV) spokesperson said in video accompanying the report.

Constraints such as endangered wildlife and vegetation, areas of cultural heritage and agricultural concerns arising from had helped determine the route, the company said.

“Valuable feedback from landholders communities, including TCV’s community reference group, traditional owners and councils has also influenced the preferred easement avoiding important infrastructure like lateral irrigators and areas of dense or sensitive vegetation.”

However, a lack of consultation has been a major bone of contention with farmers, who say communication has been poor and their concerns have been ignored.

In August 2023, scores of tractors, utes and trucks rolled in to Melbourne to protest VNI West and the Western Renewables Link, which both meet at a new terminal station in Bulgana in central western Victoria.

“It’s the lack of consultation, the lack of engagement, the lack of respect,” organiser Glenden Watts told AAP at the time.

“They purely just want to bulldoze it through and don’t really give a stuff.”

The transmission company has defended its record on consultation, which included 770 landowner meetings and 17 community information sessions.

Transmission Company Victoria, created by the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Victorian planning arm, says the process to refine the initial 50km wide area of interest to a 2km draft corridor and now a 70m preferred easement has been shaped by 18 months of consultation along with field studies and technical and engineering assessments.

It says talks will continue with landowners, traditional owners and communities to refine the final route. Community information sessions are planned for November in Charlton, Stawell and Kerang. 

In June, government agency VicGrid announced a plan to compensate ‘significantly impacted’ neighbours of transmission line infrastructure with payments of up to $40,000.

Construction is expected to begin in 2026.

Source: AAP