Australia’s biggest polluter and coal generator AGL Energy has named a new CEO – Damien Nicks – as it also awards a contract for the demolition of the first of its three big coal generators that will be closed over the next decade.
Nicks – a 10-year veteran of AGL – has been promoted from his position as chief financial officer he held for more than four years, and the post of interim CEO he has held since the departure of Graeme Hunt more than three months ago.
The AGL board said it appointed Hicks because he is seen as the best person to lead one of the most significant decarbonisation programs in the country.
“The Board has been particularly impressed by Damien’s leadership of the business, including his role in championing AGL’s new strategy and his commitment, vision and fresh approach to accelerate the energy transition and to deliver value for AGL’s customers and position AGL for future growth,” AGL chair Patricia McKenzie said in a statement.
Nicks joined AGL from the transport industry (Linfox) in 2013, just as the utility dramatically switched its business strategy from green to black under the leadership of then CEO Michael Fraser, buying the highly polluting Loy Yang A brown coal generator in Victoria and then Bayswater and Liddell generators in NSW.
His main task will be to reverse that strategy, starting with the imminent closure of the ageing and decrepit Liddell generator that will close its last unit in April this year, and accelerating the push into renewables, storage, green industry and hydrogen.
AGL had hoped to allow its coal assets to run their course under a complex proposal to split the company in two, but those plans were scuppered by the intervention of billionaire green investor Mike Cannon-Brookes, who rallied enough shareholder support to vote the plan down.
AGL is now committed to turning its fossil fuel generation assets into clean energy hubs – at Liddell and Bayswater in the NSW Hunter Valley, and also at Torrens Island in South Australia and Loy Yang in Victoria.
On Wednesday, AGL named Delta Group as the contractor for the demolition of the Liddell power station, which will begin in early 2024 and take about two years.
The work will include the removal of all main structures (boilers, chimneys, turbine houses, coal plant) and ancillary buildings, and leveling of the site using recovered crushed concrete.
AGL says that more than 90 per cent of the materials in the power station are expected to be recycled during demolition, including 70,000 tonnes of steel, which it says is more than the total weight of steel works for the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Critical infrastructure, such as transmission connections, will be retained to support the ongoing use of the site as an industrial energy hub, helping provide employment and essential economic activity for the region. Planning approval has already been granted for a 500MW/2GWh grid-scale battery at the site.
Nicks has been CFO of AGL since August 2018 and became interim CEO on October 1, last year.
“It is an honour for me to be appointed Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of AGL at this important time in AGL’s history as we accelerate the transition of both our customer and generation portfolios to an integrated low carbon energy leader,” he said in a statement.
Nicks will receive a fixed salary of $1.4 million, and short term and long term incentives that could add 120 per cent of that salary if key targets are met. Those targets have yet to be announced, but will presumably include an environmental or emissions component, as well as revenue and profit targets.
AGL also announced that Gary Brown, who had been slated to be CFO of the coal-unit spin-off, would be appointed CFO. He has been interim CFO since October and led the recent review of strategic direction process that will accelerate the company’s exit from coal.
In other CEO news, the federal government on Wednesday named Dennis Barnes as the new head of the state-owned Snowy Hydro, while Marc England – a former head of AGL’s now disbanded New Energy division – began his first day as CEO of network company Ausgrid.
