Renewables advocates join VFF calls for better powerline compensation for landholders

"These big powerline projects can leave a very fractured community," Mr Jackson said.

"One was put in here 25 years ago and there's still people in the fire brigade who won't fight fires on some people's properties because they feel as though those neighbours forced the powerlines onto their place."

Those fracture lines are opening up again across regional Australia as the grid swells to connect large renewable energy facilities.

A report released overnight by regional renewable energy advocacy group RE-Alliance says the answer is better collaboration with, and compensation for, communities.

"We've been working with the wind industry for the past eight years to make sure developers are engaging meaningfully with local communities and delivering local benefits like community funds, co-investment opportunities and payments to project neighbours," RE-Alliance transmission advocate Kate Healey said.

She said it was critical that power transmission authorities and companies delivered equity.

"Landholders and impacted local communities near these lines are watching farmers be generously and annually compensated for the wind turbines and solar panels they host on one hand, but not the big poles and wires that need to be built to connect the renewable energy zones to the grid," Ms Healy said.

Australian energy infrastructure commissioner Andrew Dyer spelled out the differences. As a rough rule of thumb, hosting four wind turbines reaps $100,000 a year and could boost property values by as much as $2 million.

"Whereas, if you get the power line instead of a wind farm, you typically get a one-off impairment payment, which is based on the land consumed by the easement," Mr Dyer said.

"Sometimes that's divided by two because you can still use the land under the power lines for grazing and cropping.'

Moorabool and Central Highlands Power Alliance group member Nick Shady said compensation deals that only took current land values into account left landholders feeling they had "missed out", especially where tall towers were visible kilometres away.

"I believe it's only going to be an easement value and there's going to be some very upset people," he said.

"Imagine if you've got a 100-acre paddock that's right near town and you're thinking that one day you might be able to subdivide it and then they go and plant some powerlines through it, you're stuffed.

"And if you've got a small property right next to powerlines going through a neighbour's place, you're stuffed too."

Hunt & Hunt law practice partner Anton Dunhill specialises in helping clients affected by compulsory acquisitions and said landholders could challenge the compensation figure offered by a transmission company.

"The authority values the land but we ensure the process leads to the correct and highest compensation amounts possible," Mr Dunhill said.

"In some cases, the differences can be in the order of 10 or 20 times what's been offered while, in others, the authority is quite close to the mark but you have to follow the legal process in order to find out what is appropriate.

"If you believe there is development potential, that needs to be explored; our team ensures the independent valuer has regard to the highest and best use as well as the impact of the acquisition on the balance of the land, which can often be quite significant."

The National Farmers Federation chief economist Ash Salardini, however, said proper compensation of landowners was not enough. It was important to minimise the impact on agriculture and aesthetics but also to ensure the community at large benefited from the project.

"The energy industry has really hammed up that it's a multi-billion-dollar regional development opportunity," Mr Salardini said.

"It's not. The biggest opportunity for those regional communities is financial compensation. The rest of it is transitory and most of the benefit is felt in Sydney or Melbourne."

But Mr Shady stressed that his group didn't actually want to talk about compensation.

"We still want the powerlines underground as the community will be divided by whatever compensation is offered," he said.

"People realise that this 500kVA line is going to be there forever, generations of their families will have to look at the towers.

"They would be happy to have the lines underground because, although there will be disruption for however long it takes to put them underground, they'll never have to look at them ever again."

Mr Shady had come to the conclusion that consultation with landowners only allowed for very minor changes.

"I think a lot of people were pretty upset that there was fake consultation - it was always going to be on that route," he said.

Early and meaningful involvement of the community is at the top of the reforms the NFF wants to see delivered, Mr Salardini said.

Currently, the Australian Energy Market Operator's Integrated System Plan lays out the development priorities for the nation's energy. That plan is then turned into specific projects that are assessed for their economic feasibility, before being allocated for delivery by transmission companies, which only then conduct community consultation and environmental effects studies.

Mr Salardini said that while energy industry and consumer representatives were involved in drafting the ISP roadmap, landowners and communities were not.

"Local communities, landowners or farmers do not have any engagement or dialogue or say in that grand plan, despite the fact that nearly everyone else gets a seat at the table," he said.

"By the time a farmer gets wind that this thing's going to happen, it's usually a infrastructure owner such as TransGrid or AusNet coming to them and saying, 'Would you like this transmission line at the front fence or the back of the farm?'.

"We've been calling for a community and landowner panel as part of the ISP process. They have a consumer panel, they have an energy industry panel.

"Why don't they have one for the people that are going to house and accommodate these massive bits of infrastructure? That seems seems crazy to me."

The RE-Alliance report, Building Trust for Transmission, is available online.