Engie is considering shutting down or selling its 1,600 MW Hazelwood coal-fired power plant near Melbourne in Australia. The group owns a 72% stake in the power plant (28% held by Mitsui) that was commissioned in stages between 1964 and 1971.
The sale or closure is due to specificities of the Australian market, namely depressed market conditions, repeal of the Carbon Regime in 2014 and outages at the power plant (located near an open-cut pit coal mine that burned uncontrollably for weeks in early 2014). It is also part of Engie's plans to exit the coal business; in October 2015, the group decided not to build any coal-fired power plant and to focus on low-CO2 emission technologies, such as renewables and gas-fired projects. Earlier in 2016, it announced that it would stop the 1 GW Rugely coal-fired power plant in the United Kingdom in late June 2016 and that it was considering selling its 1.8 GW Polaniec power plant in Poland.
Engie currently operates 12 GW of coal-fired power plants worldwide, accounting for 15% of its total power generation; it will continue to develop coal-fired projects with firm contracts but drop projects without any contract signed, including a 600 MW coal-fired power plant in South Africa and a 1,320 MW project in Turkey.
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