Queensland’s fossil-first energy plan under attack with new outages and evacuation at troubled coal plant

The Queensland LNP state government’s fossil-first energy strategy has come under renewed attack after yet another dramatic outage at the troubled Callide coal generator which also forced a brief evacuation of the plant.

The Callide C coal-fired power station suffered a rare double trip late on Thursday, when both units suddenly went offline at 4.55 pm – local time – because of a fault blamed by joint owner and operator CS Energy on control systems at the plant.

Market analysts say battery storage responded quickly to the outage to arrest the sudden frequency excursion caused by the double failure and the loss of 800 megawatts (MW) of output.

But the Mt Stuart diesel generator, currently burning kerosene, was also switched on, helping push prices in the evening peak to more than $20,000/MWh.

CS Energy said in a statement on Friday that the complex had to be evacuated briefly, but predicted that both units would be back online on Sunday. But the units were still not back in service on Monday and CS Energy had yet to issue an update by the time of publication.

It is the latest in a series of disasters at the Callide coal complex, which is proving a massive liability for the Queensland grid, despite government efforts to rebuild the facility following an explosion in 2021 that nearly caused a state-wide blackout.

The Callide C4 unit had to be completely rebuilt – at a cost of more than $200 million – but the facility also experienced a structural failure in its cooling towers, and last April there was another incident in its boilers that required two months of repairs at one unit.

The latest outage also comes just two months after the completion of an $80 million overhaul of Unit C3, which forced it offline for three months from August, and which CS Energy described as the biggest ever maintenance spend at the coal facility.

Despite this, Queensland treasurer and energy minister David Janetzski blamed the latest Callide failure on underinvestment by the previous Labor government. The LNP has pledged another $1.6 billion on maintenance on its fleet of coal generators.

The Queensland LNP has ripped up the state’s renewable energy targets, cancelled or put on hold multiple renewable and storage projects, and promised to keep burning coal until mid century, despite the Australian Energy Market Operator’s repeated warnings that ageing coal plants provide the biggest threat to grid reliability.

Queensland is the most coal-dependent grid in Australia, with renewables accounting for less than 30 per cent of total generation.

“The breakdowns at Callide C3 and C4 took 800 MW of Queensland’s power offline heading into a hot summer evening on Thursday, and are yet to be brought back online,” Clare Silcock, an energy strategist at the Queensland Conservation Council, and a former renewables engineer, said in a statement on Monday morning.

“When the power stations went out, batteries stepped up and provided most of the immediate response because they’re very fast acting. But to get through it and the following hot evenings, we did have to rely on expensive peaking gas, which sent prices up in Queensland.

“Queensland’s coal fleet is the youngest but least reliable in the National Electricity Market. Reliability Watch tracking of coal outages shows Callide C is among the worst performing coal power stations in Queensland, with the second highest number of outages over the past year, despite being the second youngest station.

“No matter how many billions of taxpayer dollars the Crisafulli Government funnels into patching up coal power stations, we’re not going to see reliable power from these ageing generators as they struggle to keep up with renewable energy, which now powers more than 30% of Queensland’s grid.”

The LNP government this month has called in two standalone battery projects, adding to two previously approved wind and battery projects that were called in seven months ago, and the Moonlight Range wind project that saw its approval torn up by state planning minister jarrod Bleijie.

More projects are being sent back down along the planning process, forced to renegotiate with local councils about siting, impacts and local benefit packages.

Some councils are using this as an opportuniy to slow down or stop the development of new projects, even though the state’s biggest energy user, Rio Tinto, has warned that its Gladstone smelters and refineries will need to close at the end of the decade if they can’t move from coal to renewables and storage.

“Renewable energy backed by storage will bring down emissions and stabilise prices,” Silcock says.

“But the Crisafulli Government is sending mixed messages and creating a confusing environment for renewables and storage. Just last week it called in two battery projects with little warning and no clear pathway forward for those projects.

“We need good energy policy that prioritises nature and involves communities early, instead of an ideological bent towards coal and new gas, despite the evidence that coal keeps breaking down and gas is much more expensive to run than batteries.

“Well planned renewable energy backed by storage can deliver for nature and communities, every Queenslander’s power bills and the climate.”

Renew Economy will update the story if and when it receives more information from CS Energy.

(Update: The C3 unit appeared to be making moves to come back on line as this story was published).

Further update: Human error on internal IT network blamed for latest Callide coal outage

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