Social Licence Program

Our Community Engagement Policy establishes that Transgrid is committed to listening and seeking to understand and acting on what matters most to communities. This includes working with communities to identify opportunities that benefit them, while striving to minimise the impacts of our operations. Our aim is to build trusted and beneficial relationships with the community.

The Australian Government has released the new National Guidelines for Community Engagement and Benefits for Electricity Transmission Projects. This guidelines are specifically designed to improve the engagement and sharing of benefits with communities by transmission developers. Transgrid welcomes the release of this guidelines and we are dedicated to implementing them to improve community engagement and ensure that we generate benefits and positive outcomes to local communities and First Nations groups when building new transmission lines. 

Transgrid is one of the founding organisations and first signatories to the Energy Charter, formally launched in January 2019. Working alongside the other Charter signatories, Transgrid is driving cultural change throughout the industry and delivering better outcomes for energy consumers by defining and framing social licence and its practices.

The TAC is an executive level stakeholder advisory body that acts as Transgrid’s principle stakeholder forum, comprising representatives from energy consumer groups and industry, provides insights to help Transgrid make better decisions. The TAC represents a broad range of energy consumers, industry stakeholders and subject matter experts. Following customer feedback from our Revenue Reset engagement process, we refreshed our TAC engagement strategy and increased the frequency of meetings to monthly, to allow for earlier and more in-depth engagement on key Regulatory Investment Tests for Transmission (RIT-Ts) and better align with our work program.

The Transgrid Discovery Hub is a first of its kind for Transgrid. The Hub allows a consistent and accessible point of connection with community, landowners and businesses in Wagga Wagga and its surrounding areas. The Hub’s shopfront enables visitors to engage with Transgrid in an inviting, engaging space, accessing information about our energy vision, major projects, operations and community-based activities, contextualised around the vital role and opportunities for Wagga Wagga. Importantly, it is a one-stop-shop for an integrated view of Transgrid’s activities within the region, and a service point for enquiries. 

We believe landowners need to be compensated fairly for hosting transmission line easements. Transgrid worked closely with the NSW Government on the details of the Strategic Benefits Payments provided for landowners who host transmission assets. Our priority is to ensure that the payment is equitable for new transmission project landowners, addresses the social licence issues raised by them and balances these factors with the need to represent value for energy consumers.

Private landowners in NSW will receive $200,000 per kilometre of new transmission infrastructure hosted on their land, paid out in annual instalments over 20 years, indexed to CPI. These payments will be in addition to the “just terms” compensation paid to these landowners for transmission easements on their land.

We are also reviewing our practices concerning mitigations for residents impacted by transmission lines and ensuring our mitigations satisfy environmental impact assessment requirements. 

We have engaged a global engineering consultancy to undertake an international and national benchmarking study of current practices concerning the undergrounding of transmission lines (132,000 voltage and higher). This research will help Transgrid to understand current good practice, and the circumstances in which undergrounding of transmission lines occurs.

We have also instigated a new Better Together Initiative through the Energy Charter collaborative to undertake research into the potential impacts and benefits of transmission lines co-existing with agricultural land-use practices.

Transgrid’s Stretch Reconciliation Action Plan recognises that Australia’s clean energy transition will only happen at the scale and pace required with First Nations as partners in the development and planning of new projects.

Our Stretch RAP sets out the tangible steps we’re taking as a business to support Indigenous Australians. One key focus area is delivering measurable and sustainable economic benefits for Indigenous business and employment.

Transgrid supports CareerTracker interns annually, providing training and work experience to Indigenous students. With 89% of participants completing university. We have also partnered with The Clontarf Foundation to improves the education, discipline, life skills, self-esteem and employment prospects of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men.

The Smith Family’s Girls at the Centre program is also supported by Transgrid at Mount Austin High School, empowering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls to stay in school and build life skills.

Supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses through our supply chain is a key commitment of our Reconciliation Action Plan. As a proud member of Supply Nation since November 2018, we are continuing to partner with an increasing number of Indigenous suppliers. We are committed to delivering measurable and sustainable economic benefits for Indigenous business and employment including:

• Committing $4 million towards procurement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses.
• Major contracts requiring a minimum 2.5% spend on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander labour, goods and services.

Transgrid formed a formal 20-year commitment with Indigenous organisation Barkindji Maraura Elders Environment Team (BMEET) to manage one of the biggest Biodiversity Stewardship Agreements (BSA) in NSW history, protecting valuable habitat and one of Australia’s most endangered birds across a vast property.

The NSW Government approved the company’s first BSA on a 6,600ha property called Big Bend at Rufus near the NSW-Victoria border. This will result in the protection of four threatened species of flora, including the largest population of the critically endangered Desert Hopbush. This BSA is one property that will offset the biodiversity impact of Transgrid’s Energy Connect project.