The Queensland state LNP government has pledged to keep burning coal for power generation for “many decades,” raising further doubt about the state’s renewable rollout and emissions target, and casting a shadow over the federal government’s soon to be announced climate pledges.
As prime minister Anthony Albanese travelled to Vanuatu to try and convince Pacific Island nations how serious Australia is about setting “ambitious but achievable” climate targets, the rug is being pulled from under its feet by a state government determined to stop the transition to green energy.
Queensland has already ripped up planning agreements for two previously approved wind projects, and has called in another two wind projects for review.
The arbitrary nature of the decisions, led by a planning minister Jarrod Bleijie accused by some of “going rogue” has cast a deep shadow over the renewables industry in Queensland, despite efforts by its biggest energy user Rio Tinto, to try and source wind and solar to power its smelters in Gladstone, and support for the Copperstring link to Mt Isa.
Treasurer and energy minister David Janetzki is due to release the state’s updated energy plan on October 10, and is seen by most as a person trying to find a middle path between what’s left of the moderate faction in the LNP, and the so-called “pentecostals” led by the likes of Bleijie, and those strongly affiliated with the Nationals.
The state government has already promised to rip up the renewable energy targets set by Labor – 50 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2035 – and there is concern it may also dilute the emissions reduction targets that it signed up for even from Opposition.
See: Fossil fuel production has driven a staggering rise in Queensland’s energy emissions
Most coal dependent state
Queensland remains the country’s most coal dependent state, with a share of 66 per cent in the last 12 months, but its transition to green energy is seen as crucial to help federal Labor meet its national renewable target of 82 per cent by 2030, and key to its ability to set an ambitious emissions reduction target for 2035, due to be announced soon.
The difficulties were highlighted this week when the the LNP’s Natural Resources Minister Dale Last promised – at a press conference called to announce funding for projects designed to help the climate threatened Great Barrier Reef – that the state-owned coal generators would operate for “many, many decades”.
“(There are) many, many decades of coal-fired power still to take place and we have always said there will need to be a balance between coal-fired power, renewable energy and gas-fired power stations,” Last told journalists at the gathering in Cairns.
Further south, Glen Kelly, the LNP MP for Mirani, in central Queensland, argued that the region’s coal fired power stations should stay open “as long as needed” to be the backbone of the state grid.
“I am committed to ensuring that our coal-fired power stations remain open and operating for as long as needed in Queensland’s electricity system,” he said, according to a report in Townsville Bulletin.
“We need a strong diversified mix in our electricity grid, with reliable baseload and peaking power, including coal. Stanwell Power Station in my electorate provides 240 jobs for people in the Rockhampton region, as well as reliable power for the entire state.”
Stanwell, according to the Open Electricity, has run on a capacity factor of around 65 per cent over the last 12 months, and is not due to close until 2045.
Even further south, the performance of the older Gladstone coal fired power station has fallen dramatically with outages, poor reliability and falling output taking its average capacity factor to below 45 per cent, according to a recent analysis by Nexa Advisory.
Unplanned outages
The report found that unplanned outage hours have risen 65 per cent since 2020, even with increased planned maintenance, and downtime has totalled an average of 14,800 hours a year – the equivalent of each unit being offline for more than a whole season (14 weeks annually).
“Queensland’s major industrial economy is at risk because of the Gladstone Power Station. An industry which generates $6.7 billion in economic output is relying on a power station that is offline for the equivalent of more than half the time,” Next’s Stephanie Bashir said.
Rio Tinto clearly agrees.
It has made clear that the future of its Boyne Island aluminium smelter, which accounts for 13 per cent of state demand, and its two associated alumina refineries depend on a switch from coal power to renewables and storage, and it has already written contracts for two large scale wind farms, and a major solar and battery facility.
It’s unclear yet how the LNP government will balance the dramatic transition from coal to green energy for the state’s biggest energy consumer, and one of its biggest employers, and then argue that it should be allowed to occur in the rest of the state.
The suspicion is that the energy plan to be announced by Janetzki will be heavily focused on gas-fired generation, which is now regarded as equally damaging to coal because of its previous hidden methane leaks, particularly from the coal seam gas wells common across Queensland’s farmland.
No firm closure dates
The failure to give any firm closure dates for coal-fired power generators, as canvassed by Janetzki, is problematic because it sends confused signals to developers of wind, solar and storage projects. That makes it hard for those developments to do financial modelling and lock in funding.
The Queensland Conservation Council says the LNP’s pro-fossil fuel stance is ideological, a huge waste of taxpayer money and will risk energy reliability.
“No matter how hard the Crisafulli Government crosses their fingers and wishes, they can’t hold together our ageing and increasingly unreliable coal clunkers with sticky tape,” QCC campaign Stephanie Gray said, noting that more than $1 billion has already been spent on coal fired power station maintenance.
“Over the last summer period, Queensland coal power stations were offline or broken down a staggering 78 times,” she said.
“No matter how many billions of taxpayer dollars the Government is willing to funnel into coal, we’re going to keep seeing explosions and breakdowns as the ageing power stations head towards the end of their technical lives.
“All Queenslanders should be concerned about how long the Crisafulli Government plans to subsidise these coal-fired power stations when they could be facilitating the shift to more affordable renewable energy backed by storage.”
See also: Industry braces for more shocks in Queensland as LNP “calls in” two more wind and battery projects
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor-in-chief of Renew Economy, and founder and editor of its EV-focused sister site The Driven. He is the co-host of the weekly Energy Insiders Podcast. Giles has been a journalist for more than 40 years and is a former deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review. You can find him on LinkedIn and on Twitter.