Here’s how many wind and solar projects Victoria stands to lose if VNI West is dumped - Renew Economy

Renewable Energy Victoria and the Clean Energy Council have warned that cancellation of VNI West, a proposed 288 km transmission line linking Victoria to New South Wales, would strand up to 22 gigawatts of planned wind and solar projects. The groups argue the line is essential to move renewable output from generation-rich regions to demand centres, and that without it, projects worth billions in investment will not proceed. The warning comes as the Victorian government reviews the project's feasibility following cost and timeline concerns.

Where this fits

VNI West exposes the hidden cost of a renewables-only grid. Solar and wind are cheap per megawatt-hour, but moving that output from where it is built to where it is used demands vast transmission infrastructure. This transmission overbuild, the lines, substations, and switchgear needed to firm a weather-dependent grid, is a whole-system cost that rarely appears in renewable cost quotes. It is also a sovereignty problem: the longer Australia takes to build firm domestic power, the more we depend on weather luck and interstate backup, and the more our grid remains hostage to interstate politics and approval delays.

What it means

If VNI West is dumped, Victoria loses access to NSW renewable output when the sun sets and the wind drops, a real reliability gap if firm gas is unavailable. The strand of 22 GW of renewable capacity also signals that a renewables-only build faces a classic chicken-and-egg problem: the poles and wires must go up first, at enormous cost and political risk, before the generators can justify their investment. A domestic nuclear fleet, by contrast, needs no interstate transmission to firm itself, occupies a fraction of the land, and would break Australia's dependence on the transmission overbuild and the Chinese supply chain embedded in it.