Project: New England REZ - Place Management
Supporting delivery of NSW’s largest planned renewable energy zone.
Client: EnergyCo
Project Dates: November 2024 - ongoing
Services Delivered:
Landowner engagement
Place Manager engagement strategy development
Communications planning
Landowner constraints mapping
Community engagement and collateral development
The Challenge:
The scale of the project has already resulted in local landowners being flooded with energy generation developers trying to gain access to land, creating a lack of trust in the energy transition and fuelling community fear based on the cumulative impact of multiple solar and wind farms being proposed in the same ‘backyard’. Misinformation and concern have given rise to special interest groups opposing individual projects along with the REZ. The energy transition is driving major divisions between individual community members who support and those who oppose renewable development and associated transmission development. For the New England REZ, the intensity of the energy transition, the volume, and the risk of inconsistent approaches to community and stakeholder engagement by these projects creates additional complexity to an already challenging engagement and community acceptance task.
Project background:
The New England Renewable Energy Zone (NE REZ) Transmission Project includes more than 380km of transmission lines and four energy hubs covering 10 local government areas. The largest planned REZ by capacity, it has been declared a critical state significant infrastructure (CSSI) project by the NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces as it is considered ‘essential for the State for economic, environmental or social reasons’.
To facilitate the regulatory approvals required to support this complex project's delivery, there is a need to build and maintain trusted relationships with key stakeholders; including landowners and members of the community in the New England region to ensure impacts are fully understood and interests are represented and managed fairly throughout the route refinement and easement agreement process.
Our Approach:
Social Atlas is currently providing expert regionally- based consultants to work as embedded Place Mangers for the project, serving as key contact points for members of the community, and providing strategic advice and support to ensure landowner and community needs are heard and met.
Place Managers work to understand the fabric of the community, its conflicts, tensions, and varying perspectives, to act as an independent and ongoing point of contact for affected landowners during the property acquisition process. Through a robust constraints mapping process, they are working to identify, understand, and visually represent the challenges faced by landowners to highlight areas of overlap and potential for conflict.
Our locally based team are sensitive to the impact that the layers of engagement have on communities already concerned about the impact of the energy transition. They are responsible for representing EnergyCo in the region of the transmission project and for establishing and maintaining positive relationships with both landowners and the community that build support and acceptance and help to facilitate project delivery.
Operating within the wider Community and Stakeholder Engagement team they interface with other specialist project teams, to facilitate information flow, identify any potential community relations issues and to develop coordinated and prompt responses to minimise and mitigate risks to project delivery.
The Place Managers also regularly attend a range of community events, including information pop ups and rural and regional shows, sharing information, and helping to translate the technical complexity of the project to ensure stakeholders can make more informed decisions.
Project Outcome:
The New England REZ is currently in the early stages of its planning process and our Place Mangers will continue to assist in the ongoing route refinement and to provide the consultation and engagement assistance required as the project evolves.