Cost of delayed Victorian interconnector lifts off and reaches escape velocity

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

By Jo Nova

In a nasty shock, the VNI West interconnector price has doubled and doubled again

The whole renewables fantasy is unraveling before our eyes.

In 2023 the Victorian NSW interconnector was supposed to cost $1.8 billion. By May this year the price-tag had doubled to $3.6 billion, and now a mere two months later, the estimate has been revised again up to $7.6 billion and that’s plus or minus 30 to 50%. So it could cost as much as $11 billion. (And who knows where this trend ends?)

Without this transmission line, many future wind and solar farms evaporate, not just ones that wanted to connect to it, but other ones further away. Even offshore wind farms are less profitable without the VNI and other mainland connectors. Intermittent generators make more profits when there are bigger mainland lines to spread their erratic surges of electricity through.

“The Jacobs review also notes that without VNI-West, other significant renewable energy generation and network projects like offshore wind off the coast of Victoria will be less effective.”

— Summary of the Independent Assessment of Plan B

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July 31, 2025 at 03:37PM

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