The power cable that could make or break Victoria - AFR

Victoria is planning a high-voltage power cable to import electricity from New South Wales, intended as a key element of the state's renewable energy transition. The cable is framed as critical infrastructure for reliability as Victoria closes coal-fired generators. Without it, state authorities warn of supply shortfalls and higher costs.

Where this fits

This cable exposes a structural cost that renewable transition rhetoric omits: transmission overbuild. A renewables-only grid requires not just generation capacity but massive new interconnection to move power between regions when weather patterns favour one state over another. That transmission infrastructure is expensive, long-lead, and often contentious. It is also a cost borne after the megawatt-hour price of solar and wind is quoted. The cable is necessary precisely because wind and solar output is intermittent and geographically scattered. A firm power source, concentrated at the point of use, would not require this infrastructure investment.

What it means

Victoria's reliance on importing power through a single cable during periods of low local generation is a resilience risk. A cable failure, supply shock in NSW, or coordinated pressure on interconnectors leaves the state exposed. This is not hypothetical: grid stress during heatwaves or fuel supply disruption has already strained interconnectors. Australia is choosing a energy model that is more dependent on interstate transmission and on weather conditions than the alternative. A domestic nuclear fleet would be weather-independent, require no transmission overbuild between states, and sit under Australian control. Instead, the cost and risk of the transmission cable is the path being taken.