A northern Wimmera farmer believes transmission lines planned for his region will be crucial in making several local renewable projects viable.
Wallup farmer Simon Tickner is one of many producers currently farming under the 6500km of existing transmission in Victoria.
He believes an issue getting lost in the discussion over transmission lines were the fact that renewable projects cannot reach their potential.
"You have got dozens of farmers contractually signed up for these things, who have been through a complex negotiation process and are more than happy to agree to renewables on their farmland," he said.
"But those projects can't go ahead without that transmission line upgrade. It employs people, gives them a different income stream, and they're really significant to these regions once they're developed."
According to the non-profit advocacy body RE-Alliance there are 19 renewable energy projects, totalling over 10 gigawatts, under consideration throughout western Victoria, but without additional transmission, they can't be connected.
Mt Tickner's own property, which grows oilseeds, cereals, pulses, fodder and also agists sheep hosted transmission lines since the 1970s.
There are six kilometres of transmission towers with 14 towers which are part of a line running between Horsham and Mildura, and as far as he could remember, there had been minimal changes to his farming practices.
"Powerlines are just one of the numerous obstacles we have in paddocks that we need to navigate around, like trees," he said.
"We've also got single wire powerlines that pretty much run to every farming property in Victoria to power the house, and in a way, those provide more trouble than larger lines."
He said transmission lines could definitely affect specific properties with fixed irrigation infrastructure, but he has noticed minimal operational impact for typical broadacre and grazing farms like his.
"Each tower takes up roughly a ten by ten metre footprint, so there's a minute loss of productivity in that area," he said.
"We need to drive around them with our tractors and sprayers, but livestock will graze underneath them without any problems.
"There's potentially marginally more weed management under the towers themselves because we haven't got that area cropped, but we're doing that as a standard best practice around the farm with fence lines, sheds and that sort of control anyway."
Understanding the big picture
Regarding the highly publicly disputed proposed Victoria New South Wales Interconnector project, Mr Tickner believes it is essential for rural communities to understand the need to transition to renewables.
But he also understood why some landowners along the project's 800-kilometre route from Melbourne to Wagga Wagga via Bulgana, Kerang, and Dinawan are hostile to the project.
"I want to be really clear that there is no question tha,t to this point, engagement by the state government and the energy regulator has been substandard, and I can really understand why people are concerned and are looking for answers," he said.
But he said there have been recent improvements to rectify damaged relationships with landholders.
"What we hopefully will see is that the landholders who are impacted by this become more actively engaged and understand the real impacts," he said.
"There are thousands of kilometres of transmission lines across the country running through dozens if not hundreds of farms, and every one of those is an example of how transmission lines and farms interact, so it's not a new concept."
Chief executive of Wimmera Southern Mallee Development, Chris Sounness, believes projects like VNI West are imperative to community growth in the region.
"Many of our local farmers and towns currently live in energy poverty and do not have a chance to grow their community and economy," he said.
"They currently don't have the housing. They currently have little or no opportunity to make the transformation due to inadequate distribution power networks to net zero that the rest of Australia will get through this necessary infrastructure."
Mr Souness also said the way consultations have been conducted has created "disharmony and division" in local communities.
"This is hindering getting on with the job that needs to be done in obtaining the necessary social licence by building trust between the industry and the hosting communities in Western Victoria," he said.
A vocal opposition
Mr Tickner's views are at odds with the views of many farmers throughout western Victoria over transmission infrastructure.
Farmers closer to Ballarat and surrounding regions have also voiced concerns over the Western Renewables Link for many years, and another protest on Victoria's parliament steps is planned for August 15.
At a federal parliament inquiry into food security this past Wednesday, VFF president Emma Germano said many impacts would happen, including land devaluation and changes in the capacity that farmers could operate.
But Mr Tickner disagrees with those views.
"I raise an eyebrow a bit at times when I hear - and I'm hearing this regularly - that there's an easement under [transmission lines], or we can't farm under them, or farmers can't get insurance, or we won't be able to fight fires underneath them, or that land will be devalued," he said.
"On our property, we have had no devaluation of land, and we farm normally underneath lines, apart from driving around them."
Ms Germano also said that farmers were not unwilling to work with the government, and landowners would even help authorities dig trenches if lines were put underground.
"The last thing farmers want me to do is to talk about compensation because they think that means the VFF has rolled over and said 'OK, put the transmission lines in, and just give us a bit of money, and we don't care any more'," Ms Germano said.
But Mr Tickner said underground options would cause further issues.
"In a perfect world, lines would be underground, and there's no question that undergrounding is a far more expensive path than overhead," he said.
"We've got direct experience with that on our wind farm project where we pushed hard for some of the transmission lines in that project to be underground - and we're talking millions and millions of dollars difference here - but it would have potentially made the whole project unviable."
He said that for governments to achieve net zero targets, it was important the country moves at "a reasonable rate" and engage constructively to get a good outcome.
"There's a real commercial desire to make things happen for us in the region, and farmers need to understand how critical it is to the grid."
