The wires the next grid runs on

The renewable energy zone build, the Hunter Transmission Project and the corridors planned through Bayswater and Olney: who is building what, with which status, by when, from the planners’ and builders’ own paperwork.

Networks + transmission

The Hunter line is on the landholder payments list under a name nobody here uses

The governing Guidelines list it as Sydney Ring North, its project operator is still to be appointed, and the Eraring to Bayswater section sits at network planning, meaning the regulator has not yet received the economic case.

24 August 2026

Networks + transmission

If a transmission line crosses your land, there is a payment on top of the compensation

The Strategic Benefit Payments Scheme pays the equivalent of $200,000 in 2022 dollars per kilometre hosted, annually for 20 years and indexed, in addition to easement compensation. The Hunter Transmission Project is on the eligible list.

24 August 2026

Networks + transmission

486 businesses can help build the Hunter’s transmission. Fifty of them can manufacture it

The first public count of who in the Hunter and Central Coast can actually supply the transmission build, from a 196-page document almost nobody has opened. 399 capability entries for services, 108 for supply, 50 for manufacturing, and the three components ICN says the region has a real case to make.

16 August 2026

Networks + transmission

The Hunter Transmission Project has one of its two approvals. Construction still waits on Canberra

NSW granted planning approval on 29 July for the 110 km, 500 kV line. Our ladder said it needed two ministers; this is the first. EnergyCo’s own release puts construction “subject to Commonwealth Government approval”, and every date sits behind that clause. Directly affected private properties fell from about 70 to fewer than 20.

31 July 2026

Networks + transmission

Stage 1 of the Hunter’s renewable energy zone network is finished. Here is what was actually built

Fibre optics linking three Upper Hunter switching stations, 350 MW of an eventual gigawatt by 2028, EnergyCo’s verified jobs figures, and the 40 GW of registered interest queued behind the wire.

18 July 2026

Networks + transmission

Four transmission projects will shape the Hunter grid’s next decade. Exactly one is committed

AEMO’s status ladder, project by project: committed for 2028, actionable for 2029 pending two ministers, anticipated for 2034 through Bayswater, and a costed option toward the Tomago smelter.

18 July 2026