AGL executive Ralph Griffiths has delivered a scathing assessment of monopoly network owner Transgridover its mismanagement of Australia’s largest electricity transmission project.
Project EnergyConnect, originally approved at a cost of $2.28 billion in 2021 but now running to more than $4 billion, has been beset by problems, including the failure of the original construction contract.
…
Meanwhile, the Justice and Equity Centre said in its submission that the reopener rule does not apply where expenditure has already been undertaken, and as a result must be rejected.
The decision by Transgrid to continue with the project in 2023 without applying to the AER for increased expenditure “amounts to a bet, with consumers’ money, that the project would be delivered at the original cost, despite all evidence to the contrary,” the JEC wrote.
