Australians have been told to prepare for a power scarcity in 2023, when coal and gas will be removed from the market.
In 2023, the National Energy Market Operator foresaw electricity shortages.
The shortages are anticipated in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, and Victoria.
Within the next ten years, at least five coal and gas power stations will be shut down.
The report recommended substantial investment in renewable energy and storage
Australians have been warned to expect power shortages by the middle of 2023 due to the retirement of coal and gas power facilities from the national electricity grid.
Over the next decade, large investments in power generation, storage, and transmission will be required to prevent plant closures from impacting homes and businesses.
In its most recent assessment, released on Wednesday, the Australian Energy Market Operator expects serious problems in the interconnected energy markets of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia.
Daniel Westerman, the chief executive officer of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), stated, “Forecast reliability gaps have emerged across NEM (National Electricity Market) regions as a result of significant coal and gas plant closures and insufficient new generation capacity commitments required to offset higher electricity demand.”
Australia will shut at least five coal and gas power stations during the next decade (pictured: The Loy Yang coal-fired power station in Victoria)
Australia’s first cluster of coal-fired power plant retirements, totaling 8.3 gigawatts, or around 14 percent of the national electricity market’s total capacity, will occur in the next decade, according to him.
Without additional expenditures, the generation supply will decrease, threatening the transmission network’s capacity to meet reliability standards and power system security requirements.
The analysis predicts reliability gaps in South Australia in 2023-24, Victoria in 2024-25, and New South Wales in 2025-26, relative to the ‘interim reliability measure’ and the’reliability standard’, respectively.
Before 2031-32, all states on the national electricity market are expected to experience deficits.
According to AEMO, there are “supply risks” in eastern Australia for the upcoming summer.
This summer, however, it is anticipated that approximately 800 megawatts more capacity from a variety of technologies will be operational compared to previous summer.
Mr. Westerman stated that renewable energy and storage projects entering the market, as well as programs to increase grid connections, should produce 3.4 GW of power and cover gaps until the latter part of the decade, when more plants shut down.
The operator of the energy market anticipated a deficit that would hurt Australian consumers and businesses (stock image)
The major participants in Australia’s electricity industry are trying to respond to shifting customer demand for green power and the new Labor government’s stricter emission reduction targets.
Origin Australia will shut down its Eraring plant, located north of Sydney, by 2025 and replace it with a large battery and 4 gigawatts of renewable energy and storage capacity by 2030.
Origin, which already dominates the household solar market, has acquired the Yanco Solar Farm in the Riverina region of New South Wales as part of an initiative to increase large-scale renewable energy generation.
The Lock the Gate Alliance of farmers and environmentalists ‘condemned’ the new plan because it did not account for the emissions from the Northern Territory, Queensland, and Western Australia gas basins the business is exploring.
AGL Energy, the nation’s largest energy generator, reported a decline in full-year earnings due to “exceptional” market conditions as it continues to look for a new chief executive officer.
“The second half was one of the most challenging and complex periods in AGL’s operating history,” the company’s outgoing CEO Graeme Hunt said in a Friday investor conference.
Mr. Hunt stated that the appointment of a new chair is “well-advanced” and will be announced before to the annual general meeting in November, and that the global search for a managing director and chief executive officer is ongoing.
Mike Cannon-Brookes, a billionaire shareholder and climate activist, thwarted the energy giant’s planned demerger, which would have formed an energy retailer and separated the coal businesses. The leadership team resigned as a result.
Earlier this year, Greenpeace activists demonstrated in front of the AGL Energy offices in Melbourne (pictured)
Scheduled power projects for the next five years
Energy Australia’s Tallawarra B project is 320 MW.
Snowy Hydro’s 750MW Kurri Kurri
The 250MW Kidston pumped hydro energy storage project by Genex Power
Snowy Hydro’s 2GW Snowy 2.0 project
1 GW of wind power and nearly 1.5 GW of utility-scale solar power.
The energy market operator warns that further renewable energy projects are required to make up for the deficit (illustrated: the $30 billion Sun Cable project in the NT).