General News
22 May, 2023
Reluctance, reticence or simply not knowing the answers?
OPINION By CHRIS EARL FOR three months - we won’t argue over a few days - communities across the Loddon have been probing for answers on the 500 kiloVolt VNI transmission lines that could be strung across the region in quicker time than Government...
OPINION
By CHRIS EARL
FOR three months - we won’t argue over a few days - communities across the Loddon have been probing for answers on the 500 kiloVolt VNI transmission lines that could be strung across the region in quicker time than Government funds flow to repair damage from last October’s floods.
Some questions have been answered - sort of - and were part of a mea culpa-style presentation by Australian Energy Market Operator representatives at the Loddon Herald forum earlier this month.
We have heard why “consultation” was conducted in a certain way, been given an indication of what might happen next in a form of local engagement and when some more information could be fed out to landowners, farmers, Loddon Shire and communities.
A reboot to bring communities on a journey? Perhaps, but AEMO and the State Government are starting light years behind after putting local people offside since February’s shock change of preferred route, just as they are still to smooth connection with towns and people around the route of Western Renewables Link the other side of the Great Divide.
All the fact sheets under the sun that could be generating local energy have done nothing to massage concerns and fears. They are, after all, theoretical documents that, farmers say, don’t stack up with practical agricultural practices today let alone allow for future trends in machinery size and use.
AEMO has now confirmed that VNI West will have capacity to feed in locally-produced wind or solar energy. But how much? What is the interconnector’s “spare’ capacity.
And one big question that went unanswered at the Wedderburn forum: Will we all be back here in five years discussing plans to extend easement widths to accommodate a duplication of the interconnector and increase capacity?
We don’t know, still, whether VNI and its relative place within a national grid - and potential spiderweb of transmission lines in eastern states - is a project of yesterday, today or tomorrow?
Maybe that question is beyond the remit of AEMO to answer. Certainly, Energy Minister Lily d’Ambrosio could enlighten everyone but despite issuing orders that will see this project started within months, cannot find time in her busy schedule to come, meet face-to-face and talk and listen with communities through which one part of the spiderweb may very well be woven.
Just as it has been claimed the approach and attitude of AEMO has been disrespectful, particularly by the Victorian Farmers’ Federation, to local people, so must the minister’s reluctance, even reticence, to venture north to community’s her orders will impact be questioned.
Angst and frustration have already been directed towards AEMO. The feeling of people close to the campaign for greater, and better, consultation and engagement is even more annoyance with the minister.
There are alternatives being put forward VNI West - Professor Bruce Mountain has already questioned the AEMO plan, that was naturally dismissed by the operator that has a majority public ownership of Federal and State Governments.
Professor Mountain is promising a detailed alternative plan after AEMO confirms its VNI West route.
The State Government should seriously consider any alternative that is more efficient and also cost effective as it surges ahead with a transition to renewable energy, a transition with a timetable closer to that of an impetuous revolutionary.
An already costly plan cannot blow out amid a landscape of haste. Answer the questions and if that can’t be done, admit with a little bit more mea culpa.
* Chris Earl is the Loddon Herald editor