Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Observa; The long notice period required to address a “fundamental mismatch” in pace of the energy transition.
AEMO wants 5 years’ warning on coal plant closures to fix “fundamental mismatch” in pace of energy transition
…
… AEMO wants the owners of Australia’s remaining coal-fired generation plants to give five years’ notice of their closure date, instead of the current requirement of 3.5 years, to ensure there are sufficient resources to replace them.
“The risks of under procurement for system strength and inertia within the context of the transition are substantial and can obstruct the transition from progressing,” the rule change proposal says.
“There is a fundamental mismatch between the relatively short timeframes within which system step changes can become known … and the longer lead times within which approval … procurement and commissioning activities …can respond.
“Coal plant exit notice requirements are 3.5 years, but the RIT-T [Regulatory Investment Test for Transmission] process for system strength has taken more than three years to complete and the delivery and commissioning of new resources can take several more years beyond that.”
To remedy this, AEMO proposes extending the notice of closure outlook obligations in the National Energy Rules (NER) for relevant exiting plant to
five years to align with Network Support and Control Ancillary Services (NSCAS) gap declaration timeframes.…
You can read AEMO’s proposal here.
Read more: https://reneweconomy.com.au/aemo-wants-five-years-warning-on-coal-plant-closures-to-fix-fundamental-mismatch-in-pace-of-energy-transition/
What an embarrassment for the Net Zero movement.
One way to escape this ridiculous demand that power plant operators should operate under a punitive Net Zero regulatory environment for five years would be to separate the coal plants into a bad asset company and declare insolvency.
But no doubt if the AEMO proposal is adopted, there will also be laws passed which make directors of power plant companies personally liable for any failure of coal plants to complete the mandatory five year notice period.
Aussie Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen has just accepted a COP31 role, “President of Negotations”, which presumably means Bowen will get the blame when COP31 falls in a heap like COP30. So we can all look forward to some enthusiastic climate leadership in Australia, including more regulatory attacks on Aussie coal plants.
Not a good time to be a coal power plant operator in Australia.
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I understand why Australian politician were so devoted to gun control.
Actually, there was a mass shooting, and 35 people were killed. So we decided that people must have a proper reason to be allowed to own a gun. We haven’t had such a mass shooting since.
I know well that this won’t be a popular view here, but i do get tired of Americans telling us that we should be so afraid of our governments that we need to have deadly weapons. It doesn’t seem to work too well for you guys.
What about Switzerland etc.? History shows that Europe goes to war somewhere every thirty or so years with casualties in the millions sometimes.
Australia went from an inconsequential
rate of mass shootings to an inconsequential rate of mass shootings.
Y’all be bought into the spin.
Oh, we prefer none at all. Some people obviously think that regular mass murder of children is acceptable, but most of the world does not.
Great. So ban all migrants, lock up all mentally ill folk, make domestic violence a single strike then life offence, outlaw all vehicles, and make abortion a capital crime.
Children should not be killed, but folk won’t accept the sacrifices necessary to prevent that possibility.
Dictators, in particular, don’t want their citizens to have guns. I wonder why?
Define “regular” and “children”?
Has Australia banned knives yet? If not, why not? Is it because all knife users in Australia are as competent using them as Crocodile Dundee?
I’m also sure that there are Australian children who run with scissors. Should look into that as well I suppose.
Iceland suits your criteria. Others not so much.
And if they lower their standards of who can enter their country, they may change their minds.
Indeed the gun bans worked so well (/sarc) that it took until 2018 for the next mass shooting, with another mass shooting in 2019. Most mass killings in Australia are not gun based, and there’s at least one every year or so. Less than America, sure, but so’s Australia’s population.
Frankly the big concern is Victoriastan’s (or should that be Melbourneistan’s?) soaring crime rates, and wilful refusal to tolerate consequences to perpetrators for their actions.
Yes, we’ve had a few gun nuts to deal with. Fortunately they mainly only shoot a few people often police, not mass public murders. We can’t avoid all lunatics, but we make it much harder for them to get hold of guns, which is definitely a good thing.
While nobody wants lunatics having guns, the question is whether law abiding citizens should be likewise deprived of any ability to hunt, shoot, or defend themselves and kith and kin from criminals?
“We haven’t had such a mass shooting since.”
Since that event was extremely rare- it probably wouldn’t have occurred again if you didn’t have such strict gun laws. Personally, I’m not into guns- don’t own one and don’t want one, but I like the idea that if I change my mind, I can do so.
It had happened a few times before. No mass shootings like that since, however. People aren’t generally terrified of our government or fellow citizens.
In Victoria if you defend yourself against an intruder in your home you are the criminal and they’re the victim. This, coupled with not being allowed to own guns for self-defence makes the real criminals brazen.
Is having the right to own firearms about being scared of government, or about government being scared of the people?
Why do you think past authoritarian regimes have disarmed their populations?
Who were these “we”?
I disagree. Australians themselves voted for these idiots. They are entitled to suffer the results of their poor choices.
If we don’t vote for these idiots, the wrong idiots might get in….
There’s no real choice regarding net zero GDP. Everyone seems to have drunk the kool-aid.
Here “idiot” can be replaced by “popularity contest winner” with no change to the meaning.
At least no one could complain that the inmates (idiots?) are running the asylum, I suppose.
Why do you think the only choice is either Labor or Liberal? Parties like One Nation have been around for decades.
Too little, too late, forward planning like this should have been done years ago. The governments of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum have let Australia down in a big way.
Twenty years ago power companies should have been asked to provide the life of their generators and their planned proposals for the future.
Likewise, both state and feral governments should have had plans for the future power needs of the country, after all, debates on topics like “Future Oil” have been around for decades.
The current old coal-fired plants should ONLY be closed once the necessary replacement coal or gas-fired plants are built. !
Wind and solar are NOT “replacement” and can never be.
Under Bow-wow, the totally ignorant, alarmist, activist mutt, Australia is headed down the path of energy deprivation.
Exactly.
Just as you abandon a sinking craft by stepping UP into your life-raft, you make sure you have something reliable to step UP into with essential energy supply.
The politicians have that ready now. It is the rest of us that they keep unprepared.
Who cares? They voted for this of their own free will. They can suffer the results of their own foolish choices.
Hey, I didn’t vote for these clowns.
Rest of Australia is gradually waking up to just how bad the Albo, Bow-wow pairing is.
Will things turn around quickly enough to avoid disaster… I don’t know.
Story Tip – it will only cost Australians 300 billion not 9 trillion for the net zero transition:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/nov/19/the-9tn-cost-to-australians-how-a-misrepresented-figure-on-net-zero-took-on-a-life-of-its-own
Not sure where investors can be found to cough up 30 times more than locals are expected to cough up.
If the story is from the Gruniad.. you know the real cost is more like 9 trillion.. or likely a LOT more. !.
The truth of the matter is neither side knows the true cost. But historically, what ever the government quotes you can double it.
I prefer to add 10%, then multiply by 10.
Thus is typical gruinad-speak and leftist thinking. Capital investment (which obviously needs to be repaid by selling something) and goods sold to ‘overseas customers’ (by definition goods that are no longer available to Australian citizens) is not ‘real’ money. Therefore we don’t need to include it in the costs.
Embarrassment? No chance.
No government has ever been embarrassed, just ask any of them, they’ll tell you so.
What a pitiful situation.
All the coal power stations should submit a 5 year closure notice just to really drive home the problem. I mean we are supposed be fossil fuel free by 2030 .. right 🙂
This was my first thought. If I owned a fossil fuel power station now I’d want to get shot of it before the government made me pay for their stupidity.
The whole idea seems to me to be a way of postponing capacity payments for a year or so.
Engineers are rarely involved in the planning process the activists, sales and marketing create a fairytale and sell it to the investors. The engineers are simply contract hired to build the thing to a design and relevant specs and tick the regulatory boxes. Half the investors are things like super funds etc and they generally do not have staff engineers they use contractors.
As an example this is the sale history of Western Australia largest wind farm
Initial Sale: In March 2010, the project was sold to a partnership between the UBS International Infrastructure Fund and the Retail Employees Superannuation Trust (REST).
Full Ownership by REST: In June 2019, REST acquired the remaining 60% stake from UBS, becoming the sole owner of the wind farm.
Company Rebranding: The parent company, Collgar Wind Farm, was rebranded as Collgar Renewables in November 2022.
Current Owner: As of 2022, Collgar Wind Farm and Collgar Renewables are wholly owned by REST.
So as you can see the wind farm is owned by a super fund and engineering staff are not high on there priority. I suspect all these funds are doing is trying to not lose to much money and do some green washing on there balance sheet to appeal to inner city greenies.
The board of REST and all other trustees of superannuation funds have only ONE job –
security and market returns on members’ funds.
er. TWO jobs –
security and market returns on members’ funds
and a fanatical devotion to Net Zero
THREE jobs –
. . .
I make sure none of my super ends up backing anything ‘green’. I want to have secure, sustainable investments!
Exactly! Unlike today’s ‘scientists’ engineers do what they’re told, and don’t try to tell everyone how they must live their lives.
If you don’t believe the ‘scientists’ you are branded a ‘denier’ aka a heretic. Science has been hijacked into the religious fervour of the political activists.
Stop this nonsense. Coal is abundant and can be burned cleanly. It is an excellent energy source that, one could say, made possible the modern world.
Listening to these anti-energy people is like listening to UFO fanatics or believers in Irish fairies.
I have no sympathy. Australians voted for Albanese and his gang of fools including Bullet-head Bowen. Australians are themselves responsible for all the blackouts and premature mortality that the impending power outages will create.
No one forced them to this. They chose it willingly. One of the most appropriate quotations from HL Mencken applies here. “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
As a result, a land which floats on a vast ocean of coal is about to get a deluge of power outages. Schadenfreude is pointing out to Australians, “You wanted this so don’t come weeping to me when it turns out badly.”
Billy Connolly said “The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever becoming one.”. Unfortunately, those who stand for election do not follow that advice, consequently voters cannot make a good choice when they vote. So it’s actually not the voters’ fault.
Billy Connolly again: “Don’t vote. It just encourages them….”
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter
Read that idea many years ago in the Analog Science Fiction magazine.
The add to it was whoever was elected had to stay on the job until measurable good results. Draft the politicians and make them stay on the job 24/7/365 until the accomplish things of real value and benefit. Otherwise, keep them chained to the oars.
Well, I guess you can remain happy in your Schadenfreude. I’m not sure if want to be happy about anyone else’s problems, but you do you.
It’s sad when the people who DIDN’T vote for the climate morons have to suffer the consequences, but I think the hope is that those stupid enough to vote for the climate morons will suffer mightily for their choices, in the hope that they might learn something and alter their behavior in the future.
Tom Koutsantonis (South Australia’s (SA) Minister for Everything) on ABC radio this morning discussing BOBowen’s aim to get rid of fossil fuels and the effect on SA as we use gas peaking pants:
“Once there is a breakthrough technology that can give a dispatchable renewable energy on demand”
then the phase out of gas generation will occur very quickly
As with all of the ‘Let’s get rid of fossil fuels’ aims, “Then a miracle happens” is a prime component.
Tom was instrumental in blowing up the Port Augusta coal-fired power station and the ‘breakthrough technology’ he is hoping will be invented is already here – nuclear
“Once there is a breakthrough technology that can give a dispatchable renewable energy on demand” Yeah, good luck with that…
Ha ha , well this will be an interesting show. I wonder how long it will take to cause a blackout in the outback?
It’s OK, mate. They can just move to oil lamps.
The irony will of course be entirely missed by the climate deluded.
My initial response was that this was actually a good thing i.e. it guarantees 5 years of reliable energy. But if the anti-reliable\pro-renewable rort crowd make operating coal plants financially burdensome that would make reliable energy a financial millstone around the neck of companies. And given the policy and legislation being pushed by Green-Labor, even if no such thing happens, companies will be concerned about the potential future high risk of an asset they can’t close.
Would there be a legal requirement to actually generate power under burdensome climate zealot legislation, or would mere ownership be enough for Woko Haram to financially penalise the owners?
Maybe there should also be a requirement that intermittent suppliers of energy should demonstrate that they have sufficient backup capability to maintain the same availability as the non-intermittent sources, before they construct their windmills and solar farms.