<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/16/peter-duttons-nuclear-power-plan-could-lead-to-major-electricity-shortages-analysis-says>
"Peter Dutton’s plan to build less renewable energy and keep Australia’s coal
plants running longer has overestimated the reliability of ageing generators
and could lead to major electricity shortages, according to a new analysis.
The Coalition has pledged to put taxpayer-funded nuclear reactors at seven
sites around Australia and has pointed to modelling by Frontier Economics that
shows the country’s ageing coal fleet would need to take up the slack in
electricity generation while they are built.
But the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said the
modelling had assumed the ageing coal plants would be able to generate between
72% and 81% of their capacity, much higher than previous plants that were near
the end of their life.
The IEEFA report looked at the 13 coal plants to have closed since 2000 and
found in the 10 years before they were turned off, they were only available on
average 66% of the time due to unplanned outages and the need for increased
maintenance.
When IEEFA adjusted the Coalition’s numbers between 2034 and 2043 to account
for what it said was a more realistic estimate of the coal fleet’s
capabilities, it found a shortfall of 9,300 gigawatt-hours a year – the
equivalent of the power consumed by 2 million households.
Johanna Bowyer, lead analyst on Australian electricity at IEEFA, said failing
to account for the poor performance of an ageing coal fleet would risk
unexpected coal outages “and a system that hasn’t been built to account for
them”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
