RE-Alliance welcomes the release of the Draft 2026 Victorian Transmission Plan Guidelines (Draft Guidelines) and supports the role of the 2027 Victorian Transmission Plan (Transmission Plan) in providing a 25-year framework for renewable energy zones and transmission development in Victoria. The Draft Guidelines have some key strengths, including a clearer long-term planning horizon, alignment with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) scenario architecture, and explicit attention to emerging demand drivers such as data centres and hydrogen.

However, the final Transmission Plan should not be judged solely on whether it identifies efficient infrastructure pathways. As RE-Alliance argued in our submission on the Draft 2025 Victorian Transmission Plan, the Transmission Plan must do more than plan infrastructure; it must build public trust, regional capacity and momentum behind a shared story of change. There’s a need to build social capital in the energy transition while unlocking social value. The Draft Guidelines should be designed to facilitate this.

In this context we make the following recommendations for the Draft Guidelines:

• VicGrid should treat community engagement and regional capacity building as enabling infrastructure for the energy transition.
• The Victorian Government should support Local Energy Hubs or similar trusted regional institutions to help communities engage with transmission, renewable energy and electrification planning.
• VicGrid should strengthen its public communication role so communities can better understand why transmission is needed, how decisions are made, and what regional opportunities and trade-offs are involved.
• VicGrid should explain how the Transmission Plan pathway assessment will take account of cumulative regional impacts and opportunities, not just individual project economics.
• VicGrid should encourage co-ordination between projects and agencies where this can reduce impacts on landholders, agriculture and regional communities and provide cumulative benefits.
• VicGrid should publish clearer justification for its Victorian-specific data centre demand assumptions, including how speculative connection interest is filtered and how locational impacts are considered.
• VicGrid should consider whether additional public-interest criteria are needed when large new loads materially influence transmission development pathways.
• VicGrid should undertake further modelling of pathways in line with commitments to limit global warming to as close as possible to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. This will involve an ongoing reduction in fossil fuels, including gas, and assessing those pathways explicitly in the Transmission Plan.
• VicGrid should plan for contingencies of early coal closure.
• VicGrid should work with distribution businesses, AEMO and relevant agencies to ensure stronger integration between transmission planning, distribution planning, and regional electrification needs.
• Community owned projects or shared equity projects should have reserved capacity and preference in decision making within the Transmission Plan.

Read more in our full submission.