Wednesday, 16 August 2023

Electricity infrastructure

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:02): (403) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Emergency Services and concerns the threat to Victoria’s firefighters as new high-voltage transmission lines crisscross the state. At yesterday’s magnificent tractor rally protest against the Western Renewables Link and the VNI West project, I was handed letters that eight CFA brigade leaders have written to CFA chiefs and to Daniel Andrews. Volunteers from Myrniong, Coimadai, Ballan, Blackwood, Mount Wallace, Wallace, Leonards Hill, Millbrook and Bungaree declared they will not respond to fires on, above or around the proposed 500-kilovolt powerlines. This is due to the high risk as well as the unknown hazards of working around this type of infrastructure. ‘We do this to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our members,’ they said. Forest Fire Management Victoria place Darley in the highest risk category for the region and Coimadai on the high-risk list. According to the government’s own climate change projections, decreased rainfall and increased summer heat can only worsen this. Powerlines obstruct firefighting, prevent activity in proximity to towers and impede strategies to fight growing fires. Nearby fires can produce electrical arcs, damage wires and tower structures and cause supply blackouts.

The catastrophic threat to CFA operations which has driven these dedicated volunteers to threaten to refuse to operate is all the worse when we consider how unnecessary it now is. The plan B proposal delivers more than the Australian Energy Market Operator’s proposed capacity increase far less invasively and at a significantly lower cost. The minister should also be aware that it is significantly more disaster resilient. It has zero single points of failure, vital for infrastructure of this significance. In comparison, AEMO’s proposed single tower 500-kilovolt lines have more than 1000 single points of failure. In firefighting terms, AEMO will ultimately create more than 1250 kilometres of new easements, many double-circuit 500-kilovolt lines with 80-metre-high towers. Plan B in contrast uses existing or spare easements already in the operational plans of local brigades, reinforcing and augmenting 220-kilovolt lines with 41-metre towers and a small length of single circuit 500-kilovolt line with 48 towers, which will create nothing like the destruction of AEMO’s 80-metre towers. Regional Victoria will not soon forget AusNet’s role in catastrophic bushfires, and many will look to government agencies to manage the risk.

Minister, please respond to the heartfelt plea of these dedicated CFA volunteers and commission an analysis of the relative emergency management merits of AEMO’s transmission network upgrade versus the plan B proposal. Please include too an assessment of the relative merits of undergrounding versus overhead power with respect to firefighting operations.