Pic Courier Mail: Government Chairman Bowen Coking Coal and Coal Australia Chairman Nick Jorss
An settlement, which follows the announcement final month of a Energy Buy Settlement for the Higher Calliope photo voltaic farm in Queensland, will make Rio Tinto the most important industrial purchaser of renewable energy in Australia and is one other main step within the work to re-power the corporate’s Gladstone manufacturing belongings – Boyne aluminium smelter, Yarwun alumina refinery and Queensland Alumina refinery.
Impartial evaluation carried out by Arche Vitality demonstrates that the CSIRO’s GenCost’s capital value assumptions for black coal ultra-supercritical (USC) crops are between 1.2 and a pair of.4 occasions increased than current real-world benchmarks adjusted for Australian circumstances.
The ensuing levelised electrical energy value estimate for brand spanking new coal crops is $50-$70/MWh which is considerably cheaper than the GenCost estimate of $102–164/MWh for black coal. It’s also significantly decrease than the present wholesale electrical energy value within the Nationwide Electrical energy Market which averaged over $120/MWh in 2024.
Coal Australia, the height trade physique representing coal producers, staff and their communities, calls on the CSIRO to deal with inconsistencies within the evaluation of coal-fired technology prices to make sure Australia’s future power system is optimised.
Coal Australia Chief Government Officer, Stuart Bocking, stated that flawed assumptions about the price of coal energy have been costing arduous working Australians dearly in power payments and holding Australia again from reaching its true power potential.
“Australia is blessed with an abundance of pure assets, together with a number of the world’s highest high quality coal. This could make our power among the many most cost-effective and most dependable on the earth. But, we’re falling wanting that potential.
The very power that could possibly be powering our financial system, driving funding and securing prosperity for future generations is being held again by selective coverage, outdated assumptions and pointless restrictions.
In its submission, Coal Australia demonstrates that the GenCost evaluation overstates the levelised value of electrical energy (LCOE) for coal by counting on problematic assumptions, similar to excluding lifelike coal plant designs, and overstating capital and operational value inputs.
Coal Australia discovered this ends in a distortion of comparative prices between coal and different applied sciences. If these important errors usually are not addressed, it may undermine the credibility of GenCost as a policy-neutral instrument for Australia’s power planning.
The Arche Vitality report additionally discovered that enterprise coal flora extensions to the prevailing fleet was a really cost-effective approach of offering electrical energy to the grid, primarily based on present Queensland coal station information. A ten-year extension for a coal plant was discovered to require capital within the order of solely $500,000 per MW of capability.
Coal Australia Chairman, Nick Jorss, stated the outcomes raised severe questions on GenCost’s methodology and conclusions, significantly because it associated to the price of coal-fired crops.
“Sadly, as a result of limitations of GenCost’s methodology and assumptions, the headline discovering, that renewables have the bottom value vary of any new-build electrical energy technology expertise, just isn’t appropriate.
“If the goal of GenCost is to supply goal estimates for the price of constructing new electrical energy technology that’s each technology-agnostic and coverage impartial, then the assumptions chosen within the LCOE calculations are inappropriate for that process.” Mr Jorss stated.
“Correcting it will be certain that the report is really policy-neutral, technology-agnostic and may be seen credibly by the broader power market. It’s our view that, primarily based on real-world assumptions, GenCost would discover that coal has by far the bottom value vary of all new-build technology applied sciences.
“Moreover, a low-cost life extension of the present coal fleet, moderately than prematurely shutting it below the Authorities’s 82% by 2030 renewables goal, clearly has the flexibility to supply a lot decrease electrical energy value outcomes for all customers, retail and enterprise alike.”
* The biggest non-institutional shareholder of Rio Tinto is the Royal Household, and with King Charles being the ‘glowing Greenie’ of Europe it’s not arduous to grasp the transfer to renewables.
