Electricity workers across Australia have called for governments to speed up decision timeframes for the approval of critical energy transmission projects.

The Electrical Trades Union has called on state and federal governments to overhaul planning and approval process for transmission projects which are critical to support the nation’s clean energy transition.

The aim would be to deliver faster decision making so that projects are able to commence more quickly.

The call comes amid warnings that a lack of transmission is likely to see at least a third of all energy generated by major solar and wind farms across the south-eastern part of the country go to waste over the next few years (see below).

ETU National Secretary Michael Wright said the current planning and approvals process needs to be made better for everyone.

“Fixing project planning and approvals so they work better for workers and their communities as well as industry and the national economy should be a major priority for government,” Wright said.

“Energy is a critical enabler of productivity. Every business in every sector uses it and pays for it. New industries that will drive productivity like critical minerals and data centres need it to spin up.

“If we are wasting a third of our energy instead of sending it where it needs to go because projects are delayed, that’s a huge problem that places electrical workers’ jobs at risk.”

Transmission delays could see energy wasted

The latest call comes as Australia is pursuing an aggressive program of energy related construction in order to meet its climate related objectives.

By 2030, the nation is targeting 43 percent overall reductions in carbon emissions and 82 percent renewable penetration for the nation’s electricity output.

To deliver upon that, the nation is building a massive pipeline of renewable generation, storage and transmission assets.

However, there are growing concerns that the transition may be held up by delays in adding new transmission capacity.

In the 2025 edition of its Enhanced Locational Information (ELI) report released last week, the Australian Energy Market Operator warned that renewable developments across some areas are experiencing significant volumes of ‘curtailment’.

This occurs when wind or solar farms are forced to operate at below capacity so that the grid is able to cope with the volume of power which is being generated across the network.

Challenges are particularly severe in the south eastern part of the country.

Over the near term between 2026 and 2028, AEMO expects that all major solar and wind farms across both Victoria and South Australia are likely to have a shutoff rate of 35 percent or greater (see chart).

At the extreme end, some major solar and wind farms may be forced to curtail up to 65 percent or more of the power which they generate.

All this means that much of the renewable generation capacity across these two states will simply be wasted.

Over the longer term, AEMO expects the severity of the situation to ease in Victoria from 2028 onward (see chart) as new transmission assets come online.

However, significant curtailment challenges are likely to remain in South Australia (see chart).

This is happening as major transmission projects have been facing delays of several years.

A key concern in this area is the length of time which projects are facing in terms of being granted approval.

The decision making process for approval or otherwise of new transmission lines is often drawn out on account of community and landowner concern relating to potential impacts upon farming/agriculture, local towns and biodiversity.

Under the current situation, Wright says that projects with 18 month build times are spending ‘a decade in planning hell’.

(source: Australian Energy Market Operator)

Impact upon workers and workforce development

In addition to holding up the energy transition, Wright says that the delays are impacting workers and workforce development.

This is occurring as uncertainty around the transition is undermining industry confidence to invest in skills, training and development.

This not only impacts individual workers but also further complicates the energy transition as the nation needs an extra 42,500 electricians over the next five years.

As thing stand, Wright says that the nation has thousands of kilometers of transmission lines to build and ‘not a single lineworker apprentice employed on a transmission construction project’.

Massive ‘valleys of death’ between projects are jeopardising the employment security of workers and undermining efforts to get more people into apprenticeships, he says.

In fact, he says that as thing stand, grid scale renewable and transmission projects take far more than they give when it comes to workforce as many projects have few or no apprentices or trainees.

Change needed

Asked specifically how approval process should change, Wright acknowledged that there are no silver bullets.

He says that what is needed is a substantially clear but administratively easier set of approval regimes.

Specifically in relation to approvals for transmission infrastructure, Wright says that there needs to be:

• Transmission planning and approvals processes that expressly include consideration of the impact of workforce shortages on delivery timeframes and include this in planning considerations.
• Clear delineation of the roles and responsibilities of different planning agencies at state and federal level, ensuring that both whole-of-system targets AND state development priorities are met. This will reduce current regulatory and approval bottlenecks caused by the need to coordinate processes across multiple agencies who do not clearly understand where responsibilities start and finish.
• Consideration of Interconnector projects as state significant infrastructure to ensure these are prioritised, fast-tracked, and delivered in a timely manner.
• Early community engagement by state planning agencies to identify critical issues in proposed routes and take this into account in assessing route options.
• Clear communication and involvement with communities about the role of transmission in connecting up renewables.

Above all, Wright would like to see greater consolidation of assessment and consultation functions across various portfolios and levels of government. This would minimise duplication and enable processes that are required by different jurisdictions to run concurrently.

He calls for consideration of a one-stop-shop arrangement for planning approvals across all levels of government.

This would consolidate consultation, planning and approval mechanisms that are currently scattered across agencies, portfolios and levels of government.

Action needed

Wright says that the importance of action should not be underestimated.

“We need to stop consulting communities to death, provide a faster “yes” or a faster “no” for projects,” he said.

“This is how we give industry and workers the certainty to build the projects that will boost Australian productivity and create the jobs that will train the next generation of Australian power workers.”

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