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The road to net-zero is getting rockier and more expensive for the architects of the nation’s decarbonisation plans, with billions in cost blowouts, cancelled projects and community engagement headwinds ballooning the cost of the clean energy transition.

So far this year alone, the combined increases for just a handful of headline projects have topped $8 billion, compounding long-held concerns that the hikes will eventually be passed through to consumers in the form of higher energy bills.

The latest bump came with the Australian Energy Regulator confirming on Wednesday that the cost to complete construction of the integral Central-West Orana renewable energy zone, in Central West NSW, has increased eight-fold to $5.5b from $650 million in 2020, when the plan was albeit much smaller, and $3.2b in 2023.

That announcement follows news that the price tag for the VNI West overhead transmission project has also surged from an estimated $3.9b spruiked to get the job done in a 2024 grid blueprint to now potentially skywards of $11b, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator.

It is not the only price to be paid for the controversial poles and wires development slated to snake across 475 kilometres of regional Victoria and NSW, much of it farmland, to connect wind and solar renewable projects into the grid, after its proposed end date was pushed two years back due to community engagement issues.

Other project price hikes this year include a cost-benefit analysis of the 345-kilometre, 1500 megawatt Marinus Link development, owned by the federal, Victorian and Tasmanian governments, and the North West Transmission Development, owned by TasNetworks, aligning new and existing poles and wires on the Tasmania mainland with the Marinus Link corridor at Burnie, showing a budget of more than $5B.

That figure includes $3.89b needed for the first stage of Marinus Link, compared to $3.86B quoted in late 2024, and a $200m increase for the NWTD to $1.14B

The electricity and communications cable is to be built undersea across Bass Strait and then underground through lower Gippsland in Victoria to plug into the old Hazelwood power station site to provide the mainland with greater access to Tasmania’s renewable energy resources and vice versa.

Environment Minister Murray Watt announced earlier this week that he has given the thumbs-up for the “nation-building” project to proceed and, in a statement, mentioned an impressive number of jobs to be created and homes to be powered, but, interestingly, nothing about the costs.

The Tasmanian Whole of State Business Case released last week showed it would increase power prices by about $70 per Tasmanian household per cycle and $140 for most small businesses.

However, it also found the higher transmission costs could be “broadly offset” by lower wholesale electricity prices, compared to “No Marinus”, with increased exports from Tasmania putting downward pressure on Victorian wholesale spot and assumed contract prices.

Meanwhile, in February, Transgrid confirmed the financial hit to complete Australia’s largest transmission project, the 900km-long Energy Connect interconnector being built across South Australia, Victoria and NSW, had increased from the $2.1b quoted in 2023 to $3.6b, a 75 per cent increase.

Around 10,000km of new transmission lines are needed to be built in the coming decades.

In April, a scope of the CopperString power grid expansion ordained for the state’s north-west by Queensland Hydro found it would now cost up to $13.9b, a significant increase from the previous quote of $9b and worlds away from the $1.8b promised when the project was announced five years ago.

Queensland Treasurer David Janetzki said the situation was so dire that the state government may court private investors to finish the project.

Money like confetti
The Crisafulli government, though, is shaking up the renewable plans laid by the former Labor government, including scrapping the Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro project, which would have been the biggest on the planet, shortly after coming to power last October, after costs increased to $36b from $12b.

Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie said Queenslanders would have paid for the blowout “through skyrocketing power bills for decades”.

The LNP also remains fuming that the cost of another large project, the Borumba pumped hydro scheme proposed for the south-east corner, blew out by $4b to $18b.

Industry proponents have variously blamed complex and time-consuming planning demands, COVID hangovers, supply chain pressures and input cost increases, especially steel, copper and fibreglass, a shortage of workers and materials, geopolitical strife, particularly the war in Ukraine, inflation, route complexity and US President Donald Trump’s revising down of America’s carbon emissions policies, creating investor uncertainty, for delays to projects.

The AEMO’s 2025 Electricity Network Options Report found transmission line costs had risen by up to 55pc and substation costs up to 35pc compared to its 2023 estimates and projected that increased price tags overall would see household electricity bill hikes up to 9pc from July this year.

A hidden but growing cost of the transition is the price of community and landholder engagement, and perhaps reflects more needing to be spent after a lower expenditure than required in the past than an increase in costs.

But private investment will not necessarily make any scenario seamless with a ream of project cancellations and delays over the past year, including both on- and off-shore wind concerns, and the Andrew Forrest-owned Fortescue last month announcing the cancellation of two major green hydrogen projects, one in Australia and the other Arizona.

The iron ore magnate has been spruiking green hydrogen since 2020 and convinced both the Morrison and Albanese governments to buy into his dream with bags of taxpayer dollars.

The news follows the Queensland government-owned Stanwell Corporation backing away from its $1b Central Queensland Hydrogen Project earlier this year, while the South Australian government also shelved plans for a hydrogen plant near Wyalla.

Most of Australia’s large hydrogen projects, including Fortescue’s Gladstone proposal, received funding from a Labor scheme designed to boost hydrogen projects.

Origin Energy also abandoned its ambitions for a Hunter Valley hydrogen hub in NSW.

Shifting political sands
The events are unfolding with Labor still to settle on Australia’s 2035 emissions target, when it comes to counting carbon, the accounting will inform how each sector of the economy is expected to contribute to net-zero.

It is fair to say that many are holding their breath.

A sideshow to the serious stuff is a shifting political landscape where several Nationals MPs and senators are trying to wind back the clock to before former Prime Minister Scott Morrison agreed to a net-zero by 2050 policy.

The charge is being led by former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce who last month tabled a private member’s bill proposing that the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets to be repealed.

Both the Liberal Party and National Party are separately reviewing their emissions and energy policies following the May 3 election bloodbath.

While Coalition leader Sussan Ley is yet to set a timeline to hash out a net-zero policy to take to the next federal election, state-based Liberal branches have voted to abandon the pledge.

On the other side of the house, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen last week announced a significant expansion to the number of renewable projects that taxpayers will underwrite after telling an energy industry conference in May that was “time to knuckle down” in rolling out the clean energy transition as the government struggles to clear a path to reach 82pc renewable energy in the grid by 2030 and net-zero by 2050.

The Albanese government arrived in office after the 2022 federal election with a trail of environmental, climate and renewable promises behind it and Mr Bowen’s dialogue dovetails with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese flagging that his second-term priorities were headlined by kick-starting Australia’s flailing productivity through a range of measures, including faster approval of renewable projects, and addressing a significant structural budget deficit.

Community disengagement
Despite the bullishness from both men, governments and renewable companies continue to struggle to overcome social license issues relating to large-scale renewable infrastructure across regional areas.

The most recent example was an announcement last month that the controversial $3.3 billion VNI West transmission project has been postponed for two years until 2030 to give the company more time to work through access issues with landholders, further stoking concerns that the clean energy rollout was struggling to meet targets.

Clean Energy Council spokesman Chris O’Keefe said the VNI West project was an example where a renewable energy company knew it had to “do this engagement piece a little better than we have so far”.

The peak lobby group also recently felt forced to urge the industry it represents to “redouble” attempts in its struggle to win social license for large-scale wind and solar projects across regional Australia.

He also acknowledged that transmission projects are a big problem.

“Any delays in transmission projects ensure the calendar of work might not marry up as neatly as some hope,” he said.

“As an industry, while the delay might be frustrating, it is far more important for projects like VNI West to have a level of community buy-in, acceptance and ameliorating some of those concerns, than it is to get them up and running early and without that buy-in.”

Meanwhile, a grassroots alliance, spearheaded by farmers and landholders, gathered on the steps of Parliament House in Melbourne last week to protest against a range of recent decisions made by the Victorian Labor government, including legislation introduced that could fine landholders more than $12,000 for blocking transmission company access to their land.

The AEIC 2024 annual report tabled last month also showed a continued trend of matters being raised with the office by community members and potential neighbours increasing year-on-year since 2015, after 149 were received in 2023 and 87 in 2022.

Mr Bowen has admitted that Labor must do more to better engage regional Australians in the path of its large-scale renewable rollout.