Aldred joins BESS opposition
Three giant battery energy storage systems (BESS) have been proposed within Baw Baw Shire with two awaiting planning minister approval and the third permit application to be lodged imminently.
International renewable energy developers ib vogt applied to the minister on December 19, 2025, for a BESS at Trafalgar East while ZEN Energy Future Pty Ltd lodged its application on February 7 for a BESS and associated buildings and works and native vegetation removal at Yarragon North.
Samsung C&T Renewable Energy Australia (SREA) confirmed on Friday it was ready to submit its planning permit application for a proposed BESS at Shady Creek.
The projects have been proposed in the middle of prime agricultural farmland and Member for Monash Mary Aldred recently met with West Gippsland farmers who are deeply concerned about the potential impact on farmland.
"I believe that any project like this should have to first win the social license of the community that it's seeking to operate in. Clearly it doesn't have the support," Ms Aldred said.
"The minister should absolutely be not only taking that into account but basing a decision to reject those projects partly on the opposition to the project locally, but also more broadly. I have a firm view that we need to be prioritising prime agricultural farmland for farming."
While state and federal renewable energy zones and maps have been established with the goal of keeping renewable energy projects in designated areas, the three large BESS proposals, together with 300 small BESS projects, designated for Victorian farming or industrial lots, are well outside the mapped zones.
"State and federal governments are progressing with an idea to having zones for those projects. Now these projects would fall outside of those zones, so it's counterintuitive at a state and federal government level to say, let's have these zones if those governments are not going to stick to them," Ms Aldred said
"I really don't think that either state or federal government have been upfront in the way that some of these renewable energy projects have almost popped up by stealth."
The farmers Ms Aldred met with are not against the renewable energy infrastructure, but they, along with Ms Aldred believe there are more appropriate locations.
"They should be put in industrial zoned land and there's a number of big battery storage projects already underway around some of the power stations in the Latrobe Valley. Where they're close to the infrastructure that you need and it's in industrial zoned land, that's appropriately situated.
"Putting them smack bang in the middle of prime dairy and horticultural farmland is not clever, and it's undermining our region's food producing capacity at a time where farmers are already contending with a number of other different challenges as well.
"They've got rising costs, rising input costs, rising fuel costs. I'm speaking to farmers who are financially, emotionally and mentally really stretched right now, and these projects are just heaping on additional pressure they don't need; and these projects are not serving a broader social good."
BESS's provide essential energy storage capacity to assist in keeping the state's electricity network stable and strengthen supply reliability as more renewable energy is integrated into the network.
Applications submitted to the planning minister can be opposed. The process involves lodging an objection to the planning permit application, which can lead to negotiations about changes to the plans and influence the proposed development.
