Electricity transmission lines in Australia - cost blowout

[warshipadmin]

(sorry about the formatting)
Ted Woodley
HumeLink blowout makes a mockery to our energy transition

The recent approval of the controversial $4.8bn HumeLink electricity transmission project was heralded by NSW Planning Minister Paul Scully as “one of the largest transmission projects to be approved in the state’s history”, as well as “critical to deliver(ing) cleaner, more affordable energy to the grid while creating thousands of jobs and boosting regional economies”.

There was no mention of ­HumeLink’s eye-watering cost blowouts, negative net benefits, exaggerated claims, consumer costs, community opposition, ­environmental damage or inadequate capacity.

Scully stressed the strict conditions of approval – though they are largely inconsequential – as typified by the first condition listed for TransGrid: “To work with specific landowners to implement appropriate visual impact mitigation measures, such as landscaping or vegetation screening.”

Just how will TransGrid landscape or screen a 500kV overhead transmission line, with nearly one-thousand 75m towers (almost as tall as the Sydney Harbour Bridge pylons), 26 suspended wires and a 70m-110m wide easement scar across 365km?

The project’s approval came as no surprise. Every project in NSW that has been declared Critical State Significant Infrastructure, as HumeLink was, gets approved in due course, no matter what flaws emerge during the assessment process.

Let’s have a quick look at the history of this “critical” project, its consequences and the lessons for assessing proposals for the remaining 10,000km of transmission lines that the Australian Energy Market Operator says are needed by 2050.

Originally called SnowyLink North, the minister confirmed HumeLink’s primary purpose is to “unlock Snowy 2.0” through connections to Bannaby (near Goulburn) and Wagga Wagga.

The initial 2020 $1bn estimate jumped to more than $3bn two years later and then to nearly $5bn in 2023. The transmission capacity also dropped from 2570 megawatts (MW) to 2200MW.
Worse still, HumeLink only gets to Goulburn. To complete Snowy 2.0’s connection to Greater Sydney the proposed $1.6bn Sydney Ring South transmission line must be built. (Likewise, further transmission is needed beyond Wagga Wagga to connect Snowy 2.0 to Melbourne, but that is a story for another time, with many similarities to the HumeLink saga).

So the cost per megawatt of connecting Snowy 2.0 to Sydney, after accounting for the capacity reduction and the final leg, has soared more than seven-fold in just four years – surpassing Snowy 2.0’s record-setting cost blowouts (so far).
TransGrid claims the cost blowouts have been more than compensated by increases in the gross benefits from $2bn in 2020, to $3bn in 2022, to $9bn in 2024. Every time the cost increased, so did the benefits. The Australian Energy Regulator considered the latest benefits’ estimate to be overstated by almost $3bn, but still approved the project’s expenditure by ignoring other dubious TransGrid claims and the cost of Sydney Ring South. Industry experts have contended for some years that HumeLink’s cost substantially exceeds its benefits.
What is particularly inequitable, however, is that the burgeoning cost of HumeLink is to be paid for entirely by NSW electricity consumers, through a hike in transmission tariffs estimated to be more than 50 per cent.

Why isn’t the NSW government protecting consumers by ­insisting that the major beneficiaries of HumeLink – being Snowy 2.0 and new wind and solar generators in southwest-NSW – pay their fair share of the costs they are incurring? Will the government allow future renewable developers to continue getting a free ride at the expense of electricity consumers?
An often disregarded consequence of new transmission lines is the impact on local communities and the environment. Few people welcome a 500kV overhead transmission line in their vicinity. No amount of money can compensate for the impact, especially in rural landscapes.

The enormity of HumeLink’s environmental impacts is indicated by its 9000 hectare con­struction corridor stretching 365km and the $0.5bn bank guarantee required from TransGrid to ensure biodiversity offsets are ­implemented.

Undergrounding is an alternative design increasingly applied for long-distance transmission in many overseas grids, especially by direct current. However, both TransGrid and AEMO are dismissing this alternative, claiming excessive capital costs, despite a detailed study by international experts concluding the extra cost for HumeLink is about 1.5 times or less.

Undergrounding brings many offsetting benefits, including less environmental and agricultural impact, no susceptibility to bushfires and weather-related outages and, most importantly, minimal opposition from landowners and local communities.

An underground HumeLink would have gained immediate social licence, avoiding the enormous angst, time and expenditure for both the communities and TransGrid in contesting the overhead proposal.

Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen says the HumeLink project is necessary to connect Snowy 2.0, which will deliver reliable, affordable energy to homes.

Undergrounding won’t be appropriate in every location, but it should not continue to be automatically dismissed. Inexcusably, not one of the 10,000km of proposed transmission lines is being considered to be undergrounded.

And to cap it all off, HumeLink is undersized. It’s capacity of 2200MW cannot accommodate some 8000MW of claimed transmission services, including Snowy 2.0 (2200MW), future southwest-NSW renewable generators (3000MW), and interstate transfers with Victoria (1900MW) and South Australia (800MW).
Obviously, not all services will be required at the same time and in the same direction, but there will be periods of significant ­curtailment.

Expect HumeLink 2.0 to be proposed soon.
How did we end up with “one of the largest transmission projects in the state’s history” that is exorbitantly expensive, has negative net benefits, is to be paid for entirely by electricity consumers, causes unprecedented social and environmental impacts, and is undersized?

There can be no transition without transmission, as AEMO and TransGrid keep repeating. But the processes for proposing, assessing and funding the remaining 10,000km of transmission lines must be improved.

Ted Woodley is former managing director of PowerNet, GasNet, EnergyAustralia, China Light & Power Systems (Hong Kong).

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

Recently, Oz seems to have suffered a wide-spread lapse in 'Joined Up Thinking'...

I would refer you back to infamous port expansion where, to save up-front money, the new mineral pier was to be much shorter than initial proposal, now accessed via repeatedly dredged channel. And where would these dredging's be dumped ? Up-current of a big chunk of the 'Great Barrier Reef'', and very likely to smother it...

My contacts in Oz reckon Covid or something has taken a recent bite out of general population's 'Common Sense'. More and more people are being seriously stupid...

Mind you, there does seem to be a global epidemic of, 'Huh ??'

Fortunately, I've the cats to keep my wits in line...

[jemhouston]

I don't think Covid had anything to do with the decrease in common sense. It's been on the decline for years. I suspect it's related to the fact too many people think intent, not results matter.

[Nightwatch2]

I don't think Covid had anything to do with the decrease in common sense. It's been on the decline for years. I suspect it's related to the fact too many people think intent, not results matter.

THAT is a global contagion.

[warshipadmin]

Oh Nik, you didn't hear about the two new ferries that had been ordered for Tasmania but that are too long for the current docks, so they are currently moored off Leith? 2 years to get the dock built.

We are part way through a Net Zero transition that is not costed (publically).

[jemhouston]

Oh Nik, you didn't hear about the two new ferries that had been ordered for Tasmania but that are too long for the current docks, so they are currently moored off Leith? 2 years to get the dock built.

We are part way through a Net Zero transition that is not costed (publically).

Which means the price is high enough, that if it gets out, rope and tall trees maybe used to remove people from this plane of existence.

[warshipadmin]

Oh it is high. No fossil fuels, so wind, solar, a tiny amount of hydro, since water is not a big resource here, and batteries. Cubic km of batteries. My guess at a system like that which will keep the lights on all night during a 3 day dunkelflaut is 720 billion dollars, enough to buy 22 of these of which we'd need 6 which would power the entire country for 70 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barakah_n ... ower_plant

But we'll do it the stupid way, cos we're stupid. Quite how we deal with 3 week long dunkelflauts is a whole separate issue.

Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.

[Belushi TD]

What, praytell, is a dunkelflaut?


THe world wonders.


Belushi TD

[kdahm]

This is somewhat of a luddite article, although it does have a point for cost increases. ERCOT has an estimated cost per mile of $5 million for 500kV single transmission line. At Midcontinent Independent System Operator, the number is $4-5 million per mile on Page 39, and the rest of the document has an incredible breakdown of all of the costs. Power Engineers cites $2 billion for a 515 mile line in New Mexico/Arizona.

It does have another point that apparently the state government is building this, instead of the utility company. But that goes into who is benefiting, legal structuring of the utility, and whether the utility will be paying for transmitting power along the line.

The cost for underground high voltage lines is enormous. There is much more land disturbance, and the costs in rocky terrain or over mountains and hills escalate. Overall, in rural areas with few residences, the aesthetic advantages are minor, because the kangaroos don't care.

[David Newton]

What, praytell, is a dunkelflaut?


THe world wonders.


Belushi TD

Cold, foggy and no wind.

[warshipadmin]

Well in Australia it means cloudy and calm, the German's invented it to explain why they were importing so much coal and nuclear powered electricity.

eg in SA

Here's screenshot from openNEM showing the recent performance of South Australia's much vaunted wind powered grid. Note that on the cursored night for 15 hours the grid was 95% powered by gas and imported coal power.
So, if they were going to keep the power on overnight they need 15 hours times 1.5 GW, 22.5 GWh of batteries. This will cost around $45 Billion. That's about 1/3 of annual state government expenditure and would have to be repeated every 15 years. It's also about 1% of the entire global annual battery manufacturing capacity, to provide one night's power for 2 million people. Battery production is expected to double by 2030, but then other first world countries claim to be going down the wind+solar+storage path, so they will need to buy batteries as well.

[warshipadmin]

Puff piece on solar wind and battery in Western Australia, but they forgot to do any math(s)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08...a ... /104170720
Harsh reality

That is to say in the last week renewables averaged 28% of energy usage, and 4 out of 7 nights the grid was fossil fuel powered to some enormous extent, 90% or more, due to the wind drought. So they'd need 2.4 GW*16h battery for one night, 38 GWh, and currently solar might give them 8 GWh per day, so they need 5 times as much solar, and a $50B battery, say $50000 per connection, amortised over 10 years. Alternatively for half that they could do it with nuclear.

WA is in the interesting position where they have no interconnectors back to the "National" grid, hence have to be self reliant.

[Simon Darkshade]

SA’s wind stuff is only vaunted by those who don’t have to live here. Solar provides a fair whack while it is sunny, which is a quite large portion of the year.

One midsize nuclear plant up at Port Augusta with even 2 x 800-1000 MW would cover up to double the 1541 MW required, and might even deliver some jobs to that thoroughly benighted town. They used to have two (brown) coal plants up there, the last of which was enthusiastically blown up in 2016…the day before a massive storm took out the connectors which supplied the western half of the state and blacked it out (including all phone connection) for 48 hours.

The wind farms take up a very large amount of land in some of the decent agricultural areas of the state (of which there aren’t an oversupply) and are very temperamental/fickle.