Australian utility AGL had entered into an agreement with the New South Wales Government (Australia) to acquire the Macquarie Generation (Macgen) assets for a consideration of A$1,505m (US$1,360m). Other bidders were ERM Power (Australia) and Marubeni (Japan).
Macquarie Generation is a state-owned company formed in 1996 active in the production, marketing and sale of electricity. Macquarie Generation owns and operates Liddell and Bayswater Power Stations, two of Australia’s largest coal-fired power plants. The plants are located in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales and have a combined generating capacity of 4,640 MW. In 2013, Macquarie Generation supplied 12% of the electricity consumed by the National Electricity Market. The Macgen power stations would give AGL ownership of the lowest cost, large-scale baseload generators in New South Wales and would increase AGL’s registered generation capacity by approximately 79% to more than 10,600 MW. This would bring AGL’s share of generating capacity in the National Electricity Market to approximately 21% and add to AGL’s diverse portfolio of renewable and thermal generation assets.