Across the world a high-wire construction boom is underway.
From Europe to China to the United States, countries are stringing together millions of kilometres of new transmission lines, racing to rewire their electricity systems for a decarbonised future.
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The pace of the transmission build-out far exceeds anything seen over the last two centuries, according to Craig Memery from the Justice and Equity Centre, a community legal and policy organisation.
“We are paying to build it out more than 10 times quicker than we ever have in the past in terms of how much new transmission is going in on a year-to-year basis,” Mr Memery said.
“It was a small part of the bill to start with. However, because of the rate we’re building it, it’s turning into a very big part of the bill.”
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While governments want new transmission, most of the cost does not come from state or federal budgets — it is recovered through electricity bills.
“What this means is that households are carrying a disproportionately large cost of the transition, and that’s arguably not fair,” Mr Memery said.
“It risks the social licence for the transition — the broader social licence of the entire community supporting it or not.”
