A long-running dispute over proposed transmission lines in Victoria’s central highlands is a test case that could have ramifications for the state’s transition to renewable energy.
The words “piss off AusNet” have been mown into a hill at Blampied, near Daylesford, for almost two years. They serve as a billboard for local resentment toward the proposed western renewables link, a transmission line intended to carry wind and solar-powered energy from a power station in Bulgana in western Victoria to Sydenham in Melbourne’s north-west, where it is expected to power the equivalent of 500,000 homes.