VNI West critic Professor Bruce Mountain wants the controversial project dumped and replaced by augmenting existing transmission lines.
Professor Mountain, who heads the Victoria Energy Policy Centre at Victoria University, this week said he would launch Plan B next month.
He said VNI West running from Bulgana, Stawell through the Loddon Shire and to Kerang promised much but will deliver little. 
“In fact AEMO/TransGrid’s modelling results show that the already extraordinary curtailment of renewable generators in Victoria will barely improve after it is commissioned, and then it will get even worse than it is now,” he said.
 “This means that the enormous expansion of renewable electricity needed to achieve Victoria’s energy transition will not happen without big subsidies to compensate generators for the curtailment that AEMO/TransGrid’s VNI-West will deliver.
“With VNI West it is more likely that the Victorian Government’s renewable electricity targets will not be met and instead the Government will be forced to subsidise the continued operation of Victoria’s brown coal generators in order to keep the lights on. 
“The common perception is that the big losers from VNI West will be affected land holders in Victoria.
“In fact the list of losers also includes the environment, consumers and renewable electricity producers,” Professor Mountain said.
Professor Mountain said he had collaborated with Simon Bartlett and Darren Edwards to propose augmentation mostly of existing transmission lines in place of the VNI West super-highway. 
“Our plan will deliver results quickly and will expand Victoria’s renewable generation hosting capacity much more than VNI West,” he said. 
“Most importantly our Plan B will have a much smaller impact on consumers, land-holders and the environment, and will deliver a much more secure transmission system.”
Professor Mountain first flagged development of an alternative transmission line plan when speaking at the Loddon Herald forum in Wedderburn in May. The plan is in the report, No Longer Lost in Transmission, to be launched on August 2.