AGL postpones closure dates for two Australian thermal power plants

Australian energy group AGL has revised the closure schedule for two thermal power plants in Australia. The group will shut down the first unit of the ageing 2,020 MW Liddell coal-fired power plant in New South Wales in April 2022 as announced in September 2017 but will delay the closure of the remaining three units to April 2023, in order to support the power system reliability during the 2022-23 summer months. As well, the group has revised the closure schedule for the 480 MW Torrens A gas-fired power plant in South Australia: AGL, which initially planned to mothball two of the four units by November 2019, will instead close two units in September 2020, the third unit in September 2021 and the fourth unit in September 2022. The gas-fired power plant will then continue operations through the summer 2019-2020, to mitigate the impacts of outages at the second unit of the Loy Yang A coal-fired power plant and to ensure that the 210 MW Barker Inlet gas-fired power plant is fully operational (commissioning expected in November 2019).

AGL is also upgrading its Baywater power plant (+100 MW) and is developing new power projects, assessing the feasibility of two 250 MW pumped-storage hydropower plants, at Kanmantoo in South Australia and at Bells Mountain in New South Wales, and seeking approval for a new 250 MW gas-fired power project in Newcastle (New South Wales).