How to win support for Australia's renewable energy transition

Australia’s transition to renewable energy is well underway with nearly half of the nation’s energy needs delivered by renewable sources. Significant ongoing development is required if the country is to meet its climate objective of transitioning to net-zero emissions by 2050.

The Australian Electricity Market Operator’s (AEMO) Optimal Development Path for 2050 shows the market will comprise a total of 120 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar, 40 GW of storage and hydro, 14 GW of gas generation and an additional 6,000 km of transmission lines.

The infrastructure required to achieve this outcome will be predominantly located in rural and regional Australia and its introduction into farming landscapes has created uncertainty and concern for host landholders and communities. Many raise significant concerns about the impact of electricity generation and transmission projects on their properties, livelihood and sense of place.

To build confidence and acceptance, proponents will need to place greater emphasis on understanding host landholder and community concerns and values, and working with them to ensure:

• The overall benefits outweigh the impacts
• Those most impacted receive the most benefit, and
• They can genuinely participate in and influence project decision making that impacts them.

JLL works with electricity transmission providers and renewable generators across Australia to pave the way for new infrastructure supporting the energy transition. Taking lessons from our projects, we have compiled the 6 most important considerations for getting transmission projects running smoothly, quickly and cost effectively.

Many infrastructure projects have been significantly delayed over the past 20 years by community opposition driven by increasing expectations towards:

• Preserving existing social, environmental and productive values from incompatible development
• Developers understanding and working with existing community norms
• Transparent engagement, genuine consideration of impacts and demonstrable changes to minimise them

Social media enables communities to raise concerns quickly and effectively, significantly impacting sentiment, development approval timeframes and proponent reputation.

Understanding these changing views is fundamental to developing an effective strategy to engage respectfully with host landholders and communities.

Route and site selection involves balancing environmental, social, economic and technical factors. It is very important to clearly explain this process to host communities and landholders, provide time and support for them to give genuine, early feedback on proposed sites and routes, and make demonstrable changes based on that feedback.

Mitigating social impacts must play a greater role in this selection process if community and landholder acceptance is to occur.

JLL strongly supports early engagement processes and greater consideration of social impacts as this approach is both procedurally fair and meets community expectations.

Announcing a transmission project will likely cause significant uncertainty and anxiety for host landholders and communities. For most, it will be their first engagement with an infrastructure proponent wanting to access their land and ultimately construct major works which needs to integrate with their farming operations. Through research, quality of contact (not quantity) has been shown to be critical to building stakeholder confidence.

The landholder engagement team should demonstrate:

• Experience in major project land access and acquisition, including contentious projects
• Shared life experience with landholders
• Strong interpersonal skills
• Respect and empathy towards landholders
• Proactive, responsible approach

The team requires strong project support including:

• Messaging and collateral aligned specifically to landholder requirements, not jargon or corporate spin
• Access to subject matter experts to speak with stakeholders
• Fast responses to issues
• Processes for feedback to be genuinely considered

Host landholders are the most highly impacted stakeholder group with unique, complex engagement requirements requiring a specialist team.

All project personnel must recognise their role in minimising social impacts. For example, design teams can adjust structure locations and conductor heights to enable farming activities to continue within easement areas and where possible, transmission lines should be located away from houses and other places of assembly to reduce visual impacts. Project leadership must set these expectations to avoid siloed working and decision making.

Statutory compensation assessments typically consider:

• Market value at acquisition date
• Special value to the claimant
• Loss attributable to severance
• Loss attributable to disturbance
• Enhancement or depreciation of adjoining land value
• Legal, valuation and professional expenses

The goal of statutory compensation is to return the landholder to their original position as much as money can do.

Many proponents over the past 10 years have begun offering commercial incentivisation beyond statutory assessment to recognise landholders' critical role in the energy transition, meet changing community expectations and facilitate early voluntary agreements to reduce delivery risk. Some offer alternative payment structures like annuities aligning with landholders' financial situations.

JLL supports improved financial outcomes for landholders hosting transmission infrastructure to better reflect their role in facilitating the renewable energy transition.

Landholders expect visitors to act with integrity and respect. Proponents outline access standards in codes, protocols, licences and agreements. Access standards have been legislated in some states, with Victoria's Land Access Code of Practice an excellent example.

JLL recognises the critical importance of respectful conduct and uses consents to enter, access licences and property management plans to capture standards and commitments.

JLL is a leading provider of land access, land acquisition and compensation services for major infrastructure projects across Australia. Our lineage dates to 1970 as Maloney Field Services. We've expanded to electricity, water and transport sectors and now deliver many of Australia's largest infrastructure projects. Our decades of experience means we understand land delivery risk and how to manage it for project success. Contact us here.