Call to retire coal-fired power stations early
Coal still accounts for nearly 70 per cent of power in Australia’s national electricity market.
Australia’s success in meeting long-term emission reduction targets will depend on closing its fleet of coal-fired power stations earlier than its retirement date or using technology to decarbonise fossil fuel pollution, the International Energy Agency has warned.
Coal still accounts for nearly 70 per cent of power in Australia’s national electricity market although a steady stream of plants will start to exit the grid over the next 15 years, starting with AGL Energy’s Liddell facility in the 2022-23 summer.
“If they don’t retire early or if we don’t use technology which decarbonises existing plants is the issue. If things stand now, if they continue to operate as they run then it is impossible. We can forget reaching these hard climate targets,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol told a Clean Energy Council seminar on Tuesday.
“Even if you assume as of tomorrow no single coal power plant will be built in the world in the next 30 years, existing coal plants if they operate throughout their normal economic lifetime of 40 years then it is impossible to reach our climate targets.”
The IEA has predicted investment in coal supply is tipped to fall by a quarter in the 12 months to December although it noted in May that COVID-19 does not pose an “existential threat” to the fossil fuel. Decisions to proceed with new coal plants have fallen by 80 per cent since 2015, but the global coal fleet continues to grow according to the IEA.
Approvals of new facilities in the first quarter of 2020, mostly in China, were running at twice the rate seen in 2020.
“The issue is what to do with the existing coal plants and for me it is the number one issue,” Mr Birol said.
“We have two big pieces of homework in front of us. One is, what we will build should be sustainable and the second is what do we do with the existing assets and power plants. It is really important to decarbonise them and here other technologies are important from hydrogen to carbon capture and storage and other electrification technologies.”
Carbon capture and storage, identified by the federal government as a technology which could qualify for subsidies, also faces a threat from the current market turmoil with the IEA noting spending on projects remained modest in 2019 at under $US1bn.
Global carbon emissions are set for their biggest annual decline on record with the COVID-19 pandemic leading to plunging demand for oil and coal in the biggest shock to the energy industry since World War II, the IEA said in April.