Ageing, dirty 170MW coal power plant mothballed in Victoria

One of Australia’s oldest and most polluting coal-fired power stations, Energy Brix in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, is being shut down, the plant’s owner announced on Tuesday.

Just two years after winning, and then losing, $100 million in federal and state government grants to develop a demonstration ‘clean coal’ power plant, HRL Limited says it will cease operations at the 170MW power station near Morwell, and its associated coal briquette plant, next month, leaving 70 of its employees out of a job.

In a statement that suggests the plant’s closure is temporary measure, HRL said it was undertaking a feasibility study to “repower” the briquette factory with a “new steam supply”.  Favourable results would lead to reestablishment of the briquette operation servicing new product markets as well as current customers, the company said.Morwell_power_station

But green groups say the closure was an inevitable outcome for one of Australia’s dirtiest power stations, and the beginning of the end for its kind as power supplies were cleaned up.

“While this is the first coal-fired power station to close Victoria for decades, it won’t be the last,” said Environment Victoria CEO Mark Wakeham.

Wakeham also noted AGL’s recent suggestion that 9000MW of Australia’s current coal-fired generation was no longer needed, and should be withdrawn from the national electricity market. Victoria’s six coal-fired power stations have around 6500MW of combined capacity.

“Victoria and the National Electricity Market are currently flooded with a massive oversupply of inflexible, baseload power generation as electricity use has fallen in recent years.

“With renewable energy and energy efficiency continuing to make inroads we can expect to see further closures of brown coal generation, with Anglesea power station or units at Yallourn or Hazelwood the next most likely to be withdrawn from service,” Wakeham said.

“The decision by HRL to close Energy Brix highlights the lack of a plan for the orderly closure of Victoria’s oldest and dirtiest power stations. Unfortunately with the State and Federal Governments walking away from conversations about planned closure of power stations, communities like the Latrobe Valley are now at the mercy of the market.”

Wakeham also suggested that the state government demand the full rehabilitation of the power station and briquette factory.

“Its critical that HRL doesn’t just walk away from this site and leave the local community with a hazard. One way of securing local jobs in the Valley would be to ensure that both the briquette and power station sites are fully rehabilitated and made good for other uses.”

Comments

7 responses to “Ageing, dirty 170MW coal power plant mothballed in Victoria”

  1. barrie harrop Avatar
    barrie harrop

    Suggested new use an interpretive center for “direct action”?

  2. Pedro Avatar
    Pedro

    Looks like they succeeded in making a “clean coal power plant” for well under $100M, by closing it down.

  3. Rob G Avatar
    Rob G

    Looks like something from the WWII era.

  4. patb2009 Avatar
    patb2009

    Can they suspend an inflated pig between the stacks?

    1. John Silvester Avatar
      John Silvester

      Something like this

  5. Harry Avatar
    Harry

    The Morwell power station and briquette factory is a relic from the 50’s. Environmentally it is a good thing though the loss of jobs will not assist the already struggling local community.

  6. Tim Buckley Avatar
    Tim Buckley

    The local government should be proactive and demand a full power site remediation, funded by the owners of this mess. And while they are doing this, the new open space and surplus transmission line capacity could be used to put in some solar thermal with storage to build grid flexibility. All of this would create a significant number of new low carbon jobs to more than compensate for the 70 jobs lost.

Get up to 3 quotes from pre-vetted solar (and battery) installers.