Coal

I was quite surprised to discover how dependent the south west of Western Australia is on coal fired thermal electric generation. There are four generating stations located around the coal fields at Collie, some 200km south of Perth.

These four stations have a cumulative maximum output of 1677MW. However 107MW of that is produced by one station which supplies the local aluminium smelter.

The most modern of these stations is Bluewaters (416MW) built in 2007 and is privately owned. It's also the lowest polluter. The oldest station is Muja (854MW) built in 1966 and is owned by the state government. It's by far the heaviest polluter. The 4th station is Collie (300MW) and is also owned by the state government.

There are a further 20+ natural gas powered generating stations scattered around the state. Most of these have a relatively low output compared to the coal fired stations.

The largest and oldest station is Muja, which has 8 turbines. Of these 4 produce 60MW, 2 produce 200MW and 2 produce 233MW. In 2007 the government announced the four small and least efficient turbines would be shut down. However a year later the government announced they would not be shut down due to a shortage of natural gas.

In 2013, after spending $250M on recommissioning the oldest two of the smaller turbines, the government announced it was suspending work on the project and the turbines were to be mothballed. But work quietly continued on the turbines and they were recommissioned the following year.

In 2017 the state government announced the entire Muja station was to be closed down by September 2018. However the 2018 state budget allocated $48M for refurbishment work

In August 2019 the state government announced Muja would continue to generate power using the four large turbines until 2022. Then two turbines will be decommissioned. So the state's oldest, most inefficient and worst polluter will continue to operate after 2022.

It appears the bulk of the station's capacity isn't being closed down to reduce carbon emissions but rather the adoption of residential rooftop solar arrays has reduced the demand for 'base load' power. Old coal fired stations are expensive to run and not easily turned on and off to meet peak loads. Whilst power costs to consumers in other states are forecast to decline over the near future they will continue to rise in West Australia. It's not hard to see why!

There are currently no firm proposals to construct new power generating stations of any type (coal, gas, hydro, solar, biomass, etc) in Western Australia. The private owners of the Bluewater coal fired station have approval from the state government to double the capacity of their existing station but to date they haven't progressed the project.

The demand for electricity continues to grown with the need currently being met by residential solar. However the take up of residential solar is going to reduce either through the number of homes requiring it contracting or the cost rising as the solar rebate is reduced. Meanwhile private industry and investors are not prepared to invest in major power generating infrastructure until they receive a clear indication from government regarding their emissions policy. There is no clear direction from government because the two major parties have completely different policies. One argument for this inertia is federal government change too quickly Looking back over the last 36 years the record shows the following

1983 - 1996 Labour (13 years)

1996 - 2007 Liberal (11 years)

2007 - 2013 Labour (6 years)

2013 - 2019 Liberal (6 years)

Both federal parties have been re-elected at least twice during this period.  No rapid rotation of governments (this isn’t Italy).

Why does the thought of Nero and Rome Burning spring to mind!