Turnbull seeks more coal options as buyer for Liddell emerges
The federal government is looking at more options to extend the life of coal-fire power stations.
Malcolm Turnbull is looking at new ways to expand the nation’s coal-fired power stations as he vows to give Australian households more affordable and reliable energy, with a surprise bidder emerging to keep a crucial AGL generator running into the next decade.
The government wants more options to increase production at existing coal power stations using a new “stocktake” of the network, in the next phase of its response to an official warning of blackouts in the years ahead.
Mr Turnbull yesterday accused Bill Shorten of walking away from workers and giving up on lower power prices when Labor refused to back the case to extend AGL’s Liddell power station amid a war of words over whether it could operate beyond 2022.
Hours after Labor dismissed prospects for the power station, Delta Electricity emerged as a potential bidder and said there was an economic case to keep it running for at least another five years.
Mr Turnbull and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg will meet AGL chief executive Andy Vesey on Monday as key members of the Coalition lashed out at the company for insisting it would close Liddell and take its 1900 megawatts of power out of the market.
“It would be an economic scandal if AGL prevented or denied the sale of Liddell to another entity to run,” said Queensland Nationals senator Matt Canavan, who stepped down as resources minister last month. “This is an important piece of economic infrastructure and they would be effectively sabotaging our economic security if they shut down this piece of infrastructure without looking at whether another person wanted to run it and own it.
“It’s their decision if they want to stay in coal. If they want to get out of it, good luck. But no government could let them get away with the economic tragedy of thousands of jobs being lost and the wider impact on energy security without at least looking for another buyer.”
Delta managing director Greg Everett told The Australian there was a “reasonable” case to keep Liddell operating but the new owner would need support from the government on regulation and finance. “We’re always interested in reliable baseload electricity,” he said.
“Whoever would take it over would need to do so fairly soon — you couldn’t do it in 2022, that just wouldn’t work.”
NSW Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly said it would be “one of the most un-Australian acts in our corporate history” if AGL closed the power station when others could run it to ensure reliable supply at low prices.
Mr Vesey has pushed back at government calls to keep the power station running, tweeting the company was “committed” to the closure of Liddell in 2022 in response to a tweet from former prime minister Tony Abbott that claimed AGL was “no longer getting out of coal”.
AGL told the Australian Securities Exchange yesterday it had made no commitment to sell Liddell and that 2022 was the end of its operating life.
Glencore head of coal assets Peter Freyberg said that as with Liddell, AGL had stood to benefit from the closure of the Hazelwood power plant in Victoria’s La Trobe Valley earlier this year.
“When Hazelwood shut down we saw electricity prices go up, so that’s hurt all the consumers, it’s hurting all the businesses that rely on electricity, and certainly all the other generators would have benefited from those increases, so just extrapolate that,” Mr Freyberg told a Minerals Council of Australia conference in Canberra yesterday.
Former Labor government resources minister Martin Ferguson, now chair of gas industry group APPEA, accused AGL of running a campaign with non-profit groups to “create an expectation in the community” that coal-fired power stations like Hazelwood should close for environmental reasons.