People power wins new wind turbine dropin session for Foster

No gold medal for VicGrid’s energy plan drop-in session at Sale

ALMOST no one tuned up at VicGrid’s 2025 Victorian Transmission Plan consultation session at Sale on Thursday morning, August 8.

Which stands to reason.

The big blue blob on the Renewable Energy Zone Study Area map of Victoria, in South Gippsland, designating the areas most suitable for investigation to host renewable energy infrastructure and transmission lines, is nowhere near Sale.

After a late night-early morning cheering Keegan Palmer and Nyora’s Keefer Wilson home in the skateboard final at the Paris Olympics or watching the death-defying feats by Nina Kennedy getting over 4.90 metres to win the Pole Vault Gold Medal; they might have been a bit bleary eyed

More likely though, they weren’t interested.

Apart from the transmission corridor coming up from the Ninety Mile Beach to Traralgon, Sale and East Gippsland generally has been totally left off the study map.

The only investigation area in eastern Victoria is located between Foster, Wonthaggi and Lang Lang with Korumburra slap-bang in the middle of the only big Tier 1 site in this part of the state.

So, the Sale people didn’t turn up. Scratch that opportunity off the list of successful community consultation opportunities.

Thankfully though, there is a community consultation session at the Korumburra Hub next Wednesday and Thursday at the following times:

* Wednesday, August 14, 2024, 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm.

* Thursday, August 15, 2024, 10:30 am – 12:30 pm.

And while the process of selecting the best place to locate wind turbines and solar farms is heavily skewed towards maximising the return to investors, minimising costs for energy users and developing a grid mainly “from an economic or ‘least cost’ point of view”, community consultation has already achieved one thing.

And it’s the good people of Foster and district who’ve delivered the first win, a small win granted, but you’ve got to take your successes where you can get them in this fraught, time-poor process.

Having fought and won the battle against the proposed Dollar Wind Farm in 2007, after more than 1000 people turned up at the Foster Hall in September 2004 to hear from environmentalist David Bellamy, they demanded that Foster also be placed on the schedule for community consultation.

That session, just announced, will be held on Thursday, August 22 at a time still to be advised.

You’d expect that more than the handful of people who accidentally stumbled on VicGrid’s drop-in session at Sale on Thursday will respond to the Foster event and also to the two sessions already organised at Korumburra.

However, there’s not much time left to make your mark, whether it’s to save the most productive diary-farming country in Australia, the nation’s most important grass-fed beef district, the hugely important Corner Inlet RAMSAR site or simply the views over Wilsons Promontory and the gorgeous green rolling hills around Korumburra.

If for example you think the draft 2025 Victorian Transmission Plan is too heavily weighted towards attracting investors and producing the cheapest power for Melbourne voters, then you have to make a submission about the Victorian Transmission Plan Guidelines by Sunday, August 25, just three days after the meeting at Foster.

And if you think that by failing to flesh out how gas-fired power stations could be part of the mix or how nuclear should be included, given there will be a 25-year transmission and generation plan produced in 2027 (and potentially a change of Federal Government before September 27 next year), you should also include that in your submission on the guidelines.

If you simply want to object to having windfarms or transmission towers located on the outskirts of Korumburra, Leongatha, Foster or Wonthaggi your go is to make a submission on the areas to be declared as Renewable Energy Zones by Septenber 30, little more than a month away.

The fallback position for South Gippsland, the only region in the east of the state being considered for its “high opportunities and low constraints for wind and solar” is that the State Government has promised that no landowner will be forced to host wind turbines.

If you don’t want it – lock the gate!

VicGrid is also saying they will develop a new model for sharing the proceeds from hosting, so that those farmers which take them on won’t get all of the profits. But that too could be a slippery slope.

Neighbours and communities hosting 300 metre-high turbines may only get a one-off payment, not on-going proceeds which may necessarily have to go to the host farms to make it as attractive as possible for those landowners to come on board.

If no one hosts wind turbines and solar farms, and if investors don’t see a big enough return on investment, it won’t happen and Victoria will descend into the stone age after they close up the Latrobe Valley, progressively from 2028 (or we pay through the nose for hydro power from NSW and Tasmania).

Interestingly enough, while the unsuccessful drop-in session was going ahead at Sale, the Yallourn W power station was pumping out power like there was no tomorrow, as the temperature struggled to reach double figures.

So, turn up at the drop-in sessions at Korumburra and Foster, and go online and participate in the feedback, or better yet, make a submission. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

Go to https://engage.vic.gov.au/victransmissionplan