Investors are ranking the slow pace of transmission construction as their biggest hurdle to getting projects built, but the grid is no longer a total red flag for wind and solar developers, with two leading energy executives praising the rate of connection approvals.
AGL head of power development Richard Mackie and Westwind managing director Tobias Geiger both say grid connections are improving – even if the pace of transmission projects remains nightmarish.
“I am impressed with the way that network companies are able to deal with a vast number of connections and steadily improving connection processes, despite the number of applications and complexity there,” Mackie said at the AuWE conference in Melbourne earlier this month.
It is the planning process, which the Clean Energy Investor Group’s (CEIG) recent survey ranked at number two in a list of turn-offs, that the energy executives saved their wrath for.
“The period that is by far the fastest is the delivery phase,” Geiger said during the AuWE forum.
