Responding to stakeholder concerns about prolonging the life of existing coal-fired power stations, Alinta Energy managing director and CEO Jeff Dimery said he would support regular reviews of their inclusion in a capacity market from 2029 onwards.
“I’ve said before that we don’t want to prolong the life of coal-fired power for a minute longer than it’s required by the market,” Dimery said.
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“But we can see today in an extraordinarily tight market just how critical every bit of capacity is to keep the lights on.
“For that reason, we would fully support regular reviews of the inclusion of coal-fired capacity from a capacity market from 2029 in a manner consistent with achieving state and national emissions reductions targets.
“We are building the renewable generation and storage of the future and we are heavily invested in its success. We do not want to delay the transition to a lower carbon energy future, but equally we do not want to see the current crisis worsen.
“A capacity market that extends to our key sources of capacity—including gas and coal—says to generators ‘you must maintain your asset and make the generation available or face harsh penalties’.
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“What it doesn’t say is ‘you can stay indefinitely’, that power ultimately lies with market operators and governments.
“We hope a solution like this will help all key stakeholders to get on board and feel comfortable that a way forward is within reach,” he said.
