In an Australian first, the New South Wales government has unveiled a scheme to pay landholders for hosting high-voltage powerlines on their properties.
The program will provide an annual sum of $10,000 per year over 20 years for every kilometre of new transmission line infrastructure.
This will be on top of the existing one-off payment farmers receive when the lines are built now.
Thousands of kilometres of grid infrastructure are under construction or being planned to connect new wind and solar projects.
The Australian Energy Infrastructure commissioner Andrew Dyer welcomed the changes and said the existing compensation method was causing consternation among farming communities.
"[The new scheme] recognises the huge contribution that landholders will make hosting transmission lines that we need to build to transform the electricity industry," Mr Dyer said.
The commissioner said compensation was organised on an ad hoc basis and that the new scheme would roughly double the amount of money going to farmers.
"If someone was to develop a wind farm on your property, one of the first things you'd talk about is money and how much you'll get paid per turbine," he said.
Transgrid manages the high voltage network in NSW and is also responsible for building thousands of kilometres of new grid infrastructure in the state.
Its director Gordon Taylor said the cost of the scheme would eventually be passed onto consumers but that it would only add about 77 cents to the average yearly electricity bill.
"We fully support the new scheme and have been advocating to recognise the role that landholders make in hosting this infrastructure," Mr Taylor said.
Not enough
Michael Katz is a landholder on the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales who is set to host the HumeLink powerline, which will connect Snowy 2.0 to the Sydney grid.
Mr Katz, who is a spokesperson for the HumeLink Alliance, said it was good to see the government at least recognise that the lines did have an impact on regional communities.
However, he said it did not go all the way.
"It misses the broader impacts on environmental damage, the risk of bushfires, the impact on tourism and the impact on agriculture — which is a real shame," he said.
The HumeLink Alliance is still calling for new infrastructure to be built underground to mitigate impacts.
Renewable energy advocacy group RE-Alliance national director Andrew Bray welcomed the proposal, which it said would more adequately reflect the important role landholders played in the renewable energy transition.
"This is a big announcement. Really, it's the first step into making sure that regional Australians are partners in the energy transformation that's going ahead," Mr Bray said.
"This build-out [of the grid] is going to benefit all Australians, and that value is captured in this payment."
