In the past year one of Australia's most critical transmission projects has been steadily taking shape in regional NSW. The HumeLink East project, being delivered for Transgrid by a joint venture between ACCIONA and Genus, will play a key role in strengthening Australia's electricity grid.

HumeLink is one of the largest energy infrastructure projects in the country, with Transgrid estimating it will generate $6.3 billion in direct and indirect investment for the regional economy.

Big goals being hit

HumeLink East Project Director Carel Nagel, said the project we're seeing big goals being hit.

"We have towers rising rapidly, conductors in the air and are moving into commissioning of the substation. None of this would have been possible without the dedication and hard work of our entire team," Mr Nagel said.

"The progress we are seeing now is the culmination of years of planning and preparation and it highlights ACCIONA's end-to-end capabilities to build critical transmission infrastructure projects," he said.

A year of progress

The delivery of the project's eastern section – known as HumeLink East – includes designing and constructing 225 kilometres of 500 kV overhead transmission lines from Bannaby in the NSW Southern Tablelands to Wondalga in the Riverina, along with an upgrade of the 500 kV Bannaby substation.

HumeLink East received final approval to begin main construction in late September 2025. The project team had crews on site the very next day drilling the first foundation near Tumut in the Snowy Valleys.

• A year on, the project has now completed 382 tower pads and more than 70% of the foundations along the project's 225km alignment.
• Civil teams have built more than 234km of access tracks and continue working on tower pads with the target for the bulk of civil work to be completed by Christmas.
• The first of 459 transmission towers was completed in January this year near Adjungbilly. The project has since erected 157 towers and is expected to hit 200 in coming weeks.

Towers and substation works

Tower erection started in the southern end of the project before moving into the central zone near Yass and more recently to the north near Goulburn with teams now working along the entire alignment.

The final shipment of tower steel for the project is expected to arrive in Australia by November.

Civil works on the expansion of the existing 500kV substation at Bannaby are now nearing completion with commissioning of new electrical equipment underway.

Stringing by helicopter

The project has moved into the next phase of construction – the stringing of more than 6,000km of conductor between completed towers.

HumeLink East is using helicopters to help string conductors as they provide safer, faster and lower-impact installation in difficult terrain compared to ground-based methods.

Helicopter stringing started in May at Adjungbilly and has expanded near Tumut in the south and at Dalton and Broadway in the central and is expected to begin in the north later this year.