Spring racing fever. EPIC Cup unbackable favourite revealed

Spring racing fever is in the air, and nowhere is the excitement more exciting than at the starting gates of the 2025 EPIC Cup, which features the most outrageously expensive and undercosted nation-building electric megaprojects. Ted Woodley reports from the piece.

The prestigious EPIC Cup (Electricity Projects Under-Cost) is the energy industry’s rival to the Melbourne Cup and Everest in Sydney. It opened in 2017, the year Snowy 2.0 was unveiled, to celebrate electrical projects with incredibly low construction costs.

While the ‘sport of kings’ is famous for separating gamblers from their cash, EPIC is the ‘sport of governments’ squandering taxpayers’ and consumers’ hard-earned savings on hopelessly costly electricity projects.

Eight-time unbeaten national champion and perennial crowd favorite Snowy 2.0 doesn’t stand a chance at the 2025 EPIC. Although the field has become more competitive this year, he may need to sweat it out to win at his usual country mile.

Annual sales theft

Looking back, what a bargain Snowy 2.0 was at the 2017 sale when he was bought by legendary colt-bringing nation-builder Malcolm Turnbull for just $2 billion, with the ridiculously optimistic expectation that he would be a full stallion by 2021. MT was right on the money when it enthusiastically predicted that Snowy 2.0 would be an ‘electric game changer’ – what a prediction.

Six years later, Labour’s new owners were thrilled to learn that the stud’s value had risen to $12 billion. And last month, Snowy Hydro boasted another reset (for the sixth time) that experts predicted; estimates that this could exceed a mind-boggling $30 billion after financing costs, extra hardware and transmission mounts are included. But we will have to remain cool for nine months while Italian coach WeBuild Lento Molto carries out a thorough re-evaluation.

Profitable 2.0. Will it snow again in the Court of Accounts?

Florence continues to provide solid support, limping first on soft grass and then on hard rock for nearly four years. ‘Go-slo’ Flo’s newborn mare, Monica, is being trailered to the other end of the seventeen kilometer racetrack to return to her mother. Let’s hope Monica has inherited her mother’s easy pace so their underground trysts don’t last many years, further delaying Snowy 2.0 and increasing its value.

Fortunately, given the Government’s lifetime sponsorship deal and taxpayers’ deep pockets, there is a chance Buckley’s Snowy 2.0 will be sold or scratched. It will take at least five more years for it to fully grow, so who knows what other records it will break.

While this year’s EPIC remains a one-horse race, let’s turn our binoculars to a few horsemen warming up at the starting gates.

Snowy 2.0’s twin mare connections

Happily, HumeLink and VNI-West, Snowy 2.0’s transmission links to Sydney and Melbourne, are starting to break ties.

HumeLink was acquired in the 2020 sales as SnowyLink North for just $1 billion; Clearly another bargain, this time for TransGrid (on a tip from AEMO). He reached $5 billion by 2024, despite spending three hundred megawatts to jump in harmony with his father. It’s time for another revaluation of HumeLink, and this time we hope it includes the Sydney Ring South, its $2 billion northern extension into Sydney.

Equally impressive twin sister VNI-West was also acquired in the 2020 sale as SnowyLink South for $2 billion; a few months ago it quadrupled to $7.5 billion, with an upper estimate of $11 billion. It continues to face muted opposition from local sporting interests who object to its roaming across Victoria’s vast landscapes. Lily D’Ambrosio’s law requiring mandatory access to private pastures has so far failed to quell opposition.

VNI-West isn’t expected to complete its preparations until the next decade, so there’s plenty of time to move to higher levels.

Snowy Hydro’s weak dwarf

Kurri Kurri Gas/Diesel Power Plant, nicknamed KK, is doing his best to keep up with his father and sisters, but he lacks physique.

Originally bought by Scott Morrison for $0.6bn, KK rose to over $2bn after the lack of gas around its stable allowed its financing and extremely expensive piping. But in today’s energy market, this is chicken feed.

KK has almost completed his training and it took three times longer than expected. He also did his best in the qualifying trials; It was left in the lurch for several weeks after spewing disgusting diesel fumes that drifted as far as Newcastle. There are rumors that watchful EPA Commissioners might even fine it, but that’s unlikely to increase its value much.

Unfortunately, KK looks destined to make very few track trips, hooking it up to a supply of hydrogen that will one day come to turbocharge its cost from Anthony Albanese’s cloud-cuckoo land and give it clean energy credentials for a zero-emission future.

KK angers the locals by signaling his first track run. Image courtesy of NBN News

The Sunshine State’s great hope

When it was conceived as a private venture in 2020, CopperString was a skinny $1.8 billion, 840-kilometre transmission proposal between Townsville and Mount Isa.

But in 2023, the crafty Annastacia Palaszczuk bought it, increased its voltage, extended its run (to 1100 kilometers) and tripled its value to $5 billion. With the Queensland Government already generating over $2 billion in revenue, the hot tip was that CopperString could reach $14 billion and give Snowy 2.0 a real run for its money. But those hopes were dashed when the new LNP holders lost at least $2 billion in value by shortening the tension and march.

What a tragedy, even though CopperString remains the Maroon’s best hope for a spot in this year’s Cup.

Pioneer-Burdekin Pumped Hydro scratch

Bettors in the Sunshine State were devastated when spoilsport David Crisafulli drew the centerpiece of Steven Miles’ 2024 election platform. The Pioneer-Burdekin bid for 5,000 MW, which would have been the world’s largest pumped hydroelectric storage, was canceled after the initial estimate of $12 billion more than doubled to $37 billion.

It’s devastating to draw a project two and a half times the size of Snowy 2.0; We can only imagine what it could have been.

But Queenslanders can at least barrack for the more modest 2000MW Borumba pumped hydro project. The initial $14 billion estimate has already surpassed $4 billion and is a prediction worth paying attention to, especially considering it’s not expected to be completed until 2035 and will follow the Snowy 2.0 playbook.

Weight decreased by half, but it is unlikely to take part in the gains

Marinus Link, which connects Victoria and Tasmania, is promising on wet tracks. Originally valued at $3 billion, it lost half its weight and remarkably retained its value. He later impressed the punters by increasing his half-sized body to $5 billion; This should rightly include $1 billion for associated grid infrastructure in North West Tasmania. It’s well below Snowy 2.0 levels, but still commendable.

It is the only EPIC entry with three government owners. The shrewd Tasmanian Government managed to negotiate a small stake (18%) with the option to sell to the Feds on completion; This leaves the onus on Australian taxpayers and Victorian and Tasmanian consumers to determine what poker skills one needs to qualify for ownership.

The value of a cunning owner

EnergyConnect, the 900 kilometer link between South Australia and NSW, shows the difference between a resourceful owner and a novice.

EnergyConnect’s valuation of $0.3 – $0.7 Billion in 2016 has increased to a more respectable $1.5 Billion in 2020 and has been duly approved by the Commissioners (Australian Energy Regulator). Unsurprisingly, a year later the value rose to 2.3 billion; $1.8 billion has been allocated for the 700-kilometer NSW section of Transgrid and $0.5 billion for the 200-kilometer South Australia section of ElectraNet. Again, it was duly reapproved by the Commissioners.

True to form, wily TransGrid has doubled the value of its NSW division to $3.6 billion in 2025. TransGrid did not bother to seek the Commissioner’s approval, expecting this to be a mere formality and for NSW consumers to again foot the bill for the overage.

Compare this shrewd result with the naive ElectraNet which confused the Stewards and the racing community when the South Australian division was completed two years ago on time and on a budget that is unheard of and inexcusable these days!

This year’s winner!

There’s a lot more in the starting gates and embryo banks, but at least you can hang up your glasses for this year.

Australia’s ‘Electric Phar Tour’ has an overwhelming chance of becoming EPIC’s ninth peat in 2025.

Snowy 2.0 will undoubtedly be the first to pass this mission and further increase its worldwide fame. Rumor has it that the tenth EPIC will be re-faced as the Snowy 30B, showcasing the incredible value of its explosive lethality.

Second place will be competitive, likely a three-way contest between HumeLink, VNI-West and CopperString, with only a nose between them.

And trackside is abuzz with rumors of future colts, Snowy 3.0 and HumeLink 2.0, hopefully extending the dynasty into the coming decades. Which EPICs are ahead with potentially six Snowy stablemates working together? Who knows how large their total value might be?

How exciting for cup punters, us taxpayers, electricity consumers and our government sponsors. “You won some none – you lose more”.

Footnote: Again this year’s ACE Cup (Accurate Cost Estimate) has been canceled due to lack of suitable entries. The only potential participant, ElectraNet’s EnergyConnect division, was blocked by the Commissioners because TransGrid’s NSW division was over budget and time.

Without a likely contender, the Stewards locked the ACE Cup in the trophy cabinet for a long period of time.

Legal costs of Snowy 2.0 snowball – more public money spent to silence more public information

Ted Woodley is the former managing director of PowerNet, Gas Net, EnergyAustralia and China Light & Power Systems (Hong Kong).