Today we commenced public consultation on the stage 1 contingent project application from Transgrid for the NSW portion of the Victoria to NSW Interconnector West (VNI West). Transgrid submitted its VNI West stage 1 contingent project application on 22 December 2023.
A contingent project application outlines the amount of revenue a business seeks to recover from its customers to deliver a project.
As part of its stage 1 application, Transgrid is seeking to recover $213.36 million ($ nominal) in revenue over the 2023–28 period to deliver the proposed ‘early works’ for the VNI West project. This includes costs for pre-construction activities, design and construction, social licence, biodiversity offsets, land acquisition, labour and indirect costs.
Our role is to review the prudency and efficiency of the proposed costs within the stage 1 application to ensure consumers pay no more than necessary. We expect to make a decision on the application in the coming months.
Submissions are invited on the stage 1 contingent project application for the VNI West project and are due by 1 March 2024. Interested stakeholders are invited to send submissions to contingentprojects
aer [dot] gov [dot] au.
Following our decision on the stage 1 early works contingent project application, Transgrid will later submit a stage 2 contingent project application to the AER seeking to recover revenue for project implementation costs once the project has been committed to and a final cost estimate is available.