Dear Members,

An update on our legal actions

The Moorabool and Central Highlands Power Alliance (the Alliance), with the generous financial backing of its many members and supportive businesses, and utilising highly respected legal and technical expertise, has uncovered fundamental flaws in the Western Victorian Regulatory Investment Test for Transmission (West Vic RIT-T) which was undertaken by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).

In the West Vic Regulatory Investment Test for Transmission (RiT-T), AEMO determined that option C2 was the preferred option to provide the greatest ‘net economic benefit’ for transmitting renewable energy from Western Victoria to Melbourne. Based on their calculations and analysis of benefits, which the Alliance’s experts confirm are seriously flawed, AEMO used this skewed business case for C2 to establish the Western Renewables Link (WRL) project, formerly known as the Western Victorian Transmission Network Project (WVTNP).

The WRL is a proposed 190km new electricity transmission line from Bulgana, near Ararat, to Sydenham in Melbourne’s west along with a proposed large new terminal station to the north of Ballarat located in prime agricultural land. The WRL is the first major new transmission line project in Victoria for 40 years. In 2019 AEMO tendered the project to AusNet Transmission Group Pty Ltd (AusNet) to plan, design, construct, own, operate and maintain this infrastructure.

On 26 August 2022 the Alliance, through its legal advisers Thomson Geer, wrote to the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of AEMO about the process and outcome of the West Vic RIT-T.  In its letter the Alliance identifies and discusses a series of significant material changes which have occurred since the West Vic RIT-T was completed in 2019. These changes include the present once-in-a-century renewables transition in the energy market. The Alliance believes these changes fundamentally disrupt C2 still being the preferred option and the basis for the entire proposed WRL.

The material changes include, but are not limited to:

• Between a $250 million and $500 million rise in construction costs since AEMO’s $473 million estimate in 2019
• Massive benefits for the project were calculated by AEMO on the now completely discredited assumption that Victoria would be burning brown coal for electricity until 2075
• AEMO’s accounting tricks that minimised costs and double-counted benefits from the related VNI West interconnector link project between Victoria and NSW meaning that up to $500 million of real costs were completely ignored by the West Vic RIT-T’s cost benefit analysis. Construction of elements of the VNI West interconnector, the North Ballarat terminal station and the 500kV section of lines, were brought forward, a decade ahead, into the WRL. This VNI West interconnector is still in the cost benefit analysis investigation stage so it may not even proceed, leaving the Alliance’s members with a WRL project that is no longer needed in its presently proposed form and will cause unnecessary impact for an unnecessary cost.

This letter to AEMO is the first step of legal action being undertaken by the Alliance to compel AEMO to stop the WRL in its current form and go back to the drawing board. The requirements of the National Energy Rules (NER), which govern the RIT-T, are clear – the series of significant material changes in circumstances that the Alliance have uncovered means that AEMO have no choice other than to conclude that C2 is no longer the preferred option and that they are obliged under the NER to reapply the West Vic RIT-T.

If AEMO sees reason and makes that happen, the Alliance sees this as an important opportunity for all our communities to finally have a say in finding an alternative solution that still meets the need to transmit renewable energy. The Alliance believes this solution should be based on realistic analysis and calculations and not have the devastating and costly impacts that our communities are presently expected to carry. Otherwise, the Alliance will take AEMO to court to enforce the law.

For additional detail we have included a summary briefing note Legal Briefing Note prepared by legal advisers Thomson Geer.

We thank you for your continued support and look forward to updating you at our community meetings in Bacchus Marsh and Ballarat to be held the week of October 17^th where our legal advisors will provide a more in-depth overview of these actions.

If you have any family, friends, neighbours that would like to join please refer them to www.stopausnetstowers.com.au

Emma Muir
Chairperson,
On behalf of Moorabool and Central Highlands Power Alliance Inc.