Australian state plans to upgrade coal plant to extend lifespan
Australia’s Queensland will upgrade units of a coal power station originally planned for closure in 2028 and assess its lifespan, according to the state government.
Queensland invested more than A$400-million ($242-million) into the maintenance of government-owned generators in 2024 and 2025, including upgrades of coal power units of the Callide B power station that was planned to close in 2028, David Janetzki, the state’s treasurer and energy minister said Tuesday.
“Treasury is working with our government-owned corporation generators to determine the technical and commercial life spans of our coal generators and that work will continue throughout the year,” Janetzki said, adding that the generators “will open for as long as it is economically sensible and systematically needed.”
Any extension of coal-fired power plants coal threaten Queensland’s pledge to end coal-fired power by 2035 under former Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, whose Labor Party was ousted by the center-right Liberal-National Party in elections last year. It also bucks a global trend of countries cutting reliance on the dirty fossil fuel and moving to alternate sources of energy.
The move comes before federal elections on May 3, where the Labor government has pulled slightly ahead in polls and where energy policy has been a main point of contention between the parties. Queensland, which is an outlier in Australia in owning most of its coal generation through state companies, earlier this year pulled funding for a major green hydrogen project, underscoring challenges for the nascent industry.
Coal-fired power stations in Queensland “provide over 8 GW of generation and are the youngest fleet in the country,” Janetzki said in his speech. “That is a competitive advantage for our state and they will continue to play a central role in our grid.”
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