The struggling renewables rollout has forced NSW to extend the life of the country’s biggest coal-fired power station and raised questions about whether it will be needed to keep the lights on into the 2030s.
“So it’s almost inevitable that these Eraring subsidies will need to be extended beyond the current 2027 end date.”to shore up the energy transition, after previously undisclosed documents revealed that her department warned the Labor government last year that shortfalls were looming.over the next four summers as the build-out of clean generation, storage and transmission fell behind the pace needed to replace retiring coal plants.
“There seems to be an attempt to have a lot of new capacity coming in, and if it does, it’s hard to see how Eraring would still be commercially viable into the 2030s.”– a 2200 MW pumped hydro project – would now come in a year earlier, and there was a limit to how long the increasingly unreliable Eraring could be extended.
Origin chief executive Frank Calabria said what happened if Eraring was still needed beyond 2027 was for Origin to decide. “The market at that time will finally determine that. But our notice is in for August 2027. So that’s our expectation as to when we’re closing,” Mr Calabria said.