Ageing coal plant “limping” to retirement, with alarming number of unplanned outages

Victoria’s Yallourn brown coal-fired power plant is racking up an alarming number of unplanned outages, a new report has found, underscoring the significant reliability concerns dogging the state’s ageing coal generation fleet – and the urgent need to shift to firmed renewables.

A Nexa Advisory report on the 1,450 MW Yallourn Power Station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley has found that the coal plant experienced an unplanned outage for at least one of its four generators for 32 per cent of the time over the course of 2024.

The picture is even worse when factoring in planned outages, the report finding that each of the four generators at Yallourn was out of action for roughly 12 weeks of the year including closure for scheduled maintenance.

Yallourn, which is one of Australia’s dirtiest coal power plants, is due to retire from service in 2028, after its owner, EnergyAustralia, made the call to bring forward its closure date from 2032, due in part to the rising costs of maintaining the ageing kit.

EnergyAustralia was compelled to reaffirm these plans in March, following reports in the Murdoch media that it was part of secret meetings with government and the market operator seeking to keep Yallourn open beyond 2028 amid fears of energy shortages.

“EnergyAustralia has publicly announced, and reaffirmed multiple times, the closure of the Yallourn power station by 2028. We have committed to Net Zero by 2050 and closing Yallourn by 2028 is part of that commitment,” EnergyAustralia said at the time.

Nexa Advisory’s Stephanie Bashir says this is just as well, given the new evidence that the coal plant responsible for around 20 per cent of Victoria’s electricity supply is “limping” to the finish line.

“The sheer volume of unplanned outages is quite alarming for a power station that is still responsible for a significant proportion of electricity in Victoria,” Bashir says.

“Yallourn is clearly limping to the end of its operational life. Today’s dynamic electricity market demands generators that respond quickly to price signals – coal-fired power stations were built for a different era.”

As part of its own plans to help replace Yallourn, EnergyAustralia is building the 350MW/1,400MWh Wooreen Energy Storage System (WESS) adjacent to its Jeeralang gas power plant in the heart of Victorian coal country.

But Bashir says the Victorian government needs to keep its eye on the ball to meet rapidly approaching emissions reduction and renewable energy targets.

Getting brown coal power generation out of the system, in particular, is crucial if the state hopes to meet its emissions reduction targets.

Nexa says Yallourn – which is responsible for approximately 12 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year – by itself represents half of Victoria’s emissions reduction target of 45-50% on 2005 levels by 2030.

“Victorians deserve clean, cheap energy – and renewable developers are lining up to build it,” Bashir says.

“But none of it will happen without an overarching plan and clear planning approval processes for transmission and renewable projects from the Victorian government – particularly onshore wind.

“These will be crucial to ensuring reliability after the closure of Yallourn.”

The Nexa report comes hot on the heels of a report from Reliability Watch – an initiative of three major environmental groups – which found that a “staggering” average of 5.1 gigawatts (GW) of coal fired power capacity was offline at any one time across NSW, Queensland and Victoria from October to March.

See also: “Riddled with breakdowns:” Why intermittent coal power is a major threat to grid reliability

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