Transgrid and its construction partner, Elecnor Australia, have transformed a greenfield site in rural New South Wales to a world-class substation critical to delivering new renewable power to the national grid and accelerating Australia’s clean energy transition.
A greenfield site in rural New South Wales has been transformed into a world-class substation critical to delivering new renewable power to the national grid and accelerating Australia’s clean energy transition.
The small rural locality of Bundure in the Riverina is home to the new Dinawan substation, which will play a vital role in bringing cleaner and cheaper energy to households and businesses in three states as part of Australia’s largest transmission project EnergyConnect.
The advanced substation sits at the junction of a new 375km dual circuit 330kV transmission line from Buronga and a 160km dual circuit 500kV transmission line from Wagga Wagga and will help deliver new solar and wind generation to consumers.
EnergyConnect Program Director, John Burke, said the nation-critical EnergyConnect project will increase renewable energy sharing between New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, putting downward pressure on energy bills and helping Australia meet its net zero targets.
“The Dinawan substation will integrate new solar and wind generation from the New South Wales Government’s South West Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) into the National Electricity Market, delivering more affordable and sustainable electricity to households and businesses,” Mr Burke said.
“The substation will also connect to the proposed new interconnector between New South Wales and Victoria, VNI West, resulting in greater energy reliability and security for the two states.”
Named after the Wiradjuri people’s word for emu, Dinawan substation is 4ha in size, equivalent to six soccer fields, and home to sophisticated electrical equipment from around the world.
Mr Burke said the remoteness of the location had provided a significant logistical challenge in bringing in hundreds of skilled workers and delivering large-scale materials and heavy machinery to site.
“I am pleased to say that Transgrid and our construction partner Elecnor Australia are finalising construction of the substation. The focus will then move to pre-commissioning works and testing of equipment before energisation,” he said.
“Since taking steps to optimise project delivery in the long-term interests of consumers, we have achieved significant progress in construction of EnergyConnect which is now more than 90% complete and on schedule to be finished in 2026.”
More than 750 people have worked on the substation to date, with construction including 275,000 cubic metres of fill to create the bench, equivalent to 27,500 standard tipper truck loads, and 6820 cubic metres of concrete for foundations, equal to 1137 average concrete truck loads.
The facility features two 120MVAr synchronous condensers weighing 300 tonnes each, installed in a 60m long, 1200m² machine hall. These large spinning machines will help maintain voltage stability on the transmission network and provide system resilience services such as inertia.
Four shunt reactors and two capacitor banks will increase the power system efficiency by stabilising voltages and reducing energy losses in the transmission network.
Elecnor Australia’s EnergyConnect Project Director, Felipe Delgado, said the company was proud to be delivering the sophisticated and world-class substation at Dinawan which will play a strategic role in the network.
“Dinawan substation has been built from the ground up and the scale and engineering complexity of this substation is a testament to the skills of the 250-strong Elecnor workforce who live and work at this greenfield site,” Mr Delgado said.
“Elecnor and its delivery partners at the Dinawan substation work across civil, structural, mechanical and electrical disciplines to integrate highly specialised equipment from around the world including synchronous condensers, capacitor banks and shunt reactors.”
