Today we commenced public consultation on Ausgrid’s contingent project application for a new substation to address increased customer demand in the Macquarie Park area.
Ausgrid has proposed $162 million ($ real 2023-24) of capital expenditure to acquire land, construct a 132/33kV subtransmission substation, and connection to 132kV feeders. This project relates to Ausgrid receiving formal customer connection applications from data centres that cannot be supplied from the existing network infrastructure. Ausgrid’s incremental revenue forecast to deliver this project is $19 million ($ nominal) over the 2024-29 period. The estimated bill impact for a typical residential and small business customer is $1 and $6 respectively in 2028-29. In subsequent years the costs of this project are expected to be recovered directly from the connecting customers.
Invitation for submissions
Submissions are invited on Ausgrid’s contingent project application for its Wallumatta substation project and are due by 18 March 2025. Interested stakeholders are invited to send submissions to contingentprojects
aer [dot] gov [dot] au (contingentprojects[at]aer[dot]gov[dot]au).
Background
A contingent project application outlines the amount of revenue a business seeks to recover from its customers to deliver a project.
Our role is to review the prudency and efficiency of the proposed costs within the application to ensure consumers pay no more than necessary. We expect to make a decision on the application in the coming months.