Graph of the day: Australia’s gas fleet fails Europe’s “transition fuel” test

Data leaked to Euractiv news on Wednesday show that the EU’s new power plant standards have set a limit of 100 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour for the provision of billions in funding, and labels that would attract investors looking for lower emissions options.

According to Euractiv, the industry expected a tough emissions limit for the ‘sustainable’ label, but it’s been applied to the ‘transition’ label too, effectively and very significantly excluding most gas-fired power stations from being classified as a tool to transition from high-emissions to low-emissions sources.

Which made me think: would any Australian power stations pass Europe’s ‘transition’ test? Here’s the 2019 assumptions for the AEMO ISP, superimposed with this looming standard. The answer is clearly no.