RE-Alliance recognises the significance that each updated Integrated System Plan (ISP) carries and we welcome the opportunity to respond to the Australia Energy Market Operator's 2023 Transmission Expansion Options Report Consultation as a stakeholder of this work.
We note that the ISP can play a key role in communicating, publicly, on the scale and pace of build required for generation and bulk transmission and its connection to pathways to meet a 1.5°C emissions reduction goal – aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement. Ensuring that this is included in an ISP modelled scenario, not just sensitivity analysis, is critical to the public narrative.
Summary of RE-Alliance recommendations
- AEMO progress development of specific, identified, cost components that are critical to developing social licence on social, environmental, cultural heritage and land-sector considerations
- Further refine what you mean by social licence, informed by experts and guided by the AEMO Advisory Council on Social Licence. This could include engaging social scientists to inform and advise the ACSL
- Include cultural, social, land-sector and environmental layers in options and routes presented in the ISP
- Increase AEMO external engagement efforts around ISP information to raise REZ region awareness and understanding
- Revise augmentation options and flow path information in plain language with improved graphic design in final ISP
- Align ISP information with state transmission plans for consistency - this could include alignment with state emissions reduction targets and targets for renewable energy generation (incl offshore wind)
- Deliver an authoritative and interactive map as part of the output of the 2024 ISP
- AEMO include social licence considerations in flow paths and options which more effectively meet community expectations for clear communication on compatibility, clear justification on public good, emissions reduction and renewable energy capacity/investment grounds, and provide information on world heritage sites, national and state parks, social, cultural, and agricultural land / water-way uses, and property density.