Australia’s Loy Yang A coal-fired plant back on line

Australian utility AGL Energy's 2,210MW Loy Yang A brown coal-fired power station is resuming operations after it tripped on 13 February, as wild storms lashed Victoria state and about half a million customers lost power.

Loy Yang A's No.2 and No.3 generation units are now on line, with the remaining two units to be progressively returned to service during the next 24 hours, AGL said on 14 February.

Approximately 220,000 homes and businesses are still without power in Victoria because of damage to power lines, down from a peak of 530,000, the Australian Energy Market Operator said.

The outage was the first major loss of network transmission capacity during the 2023-24 Australian summer, which has been cooler and wetter than expected, reducing the risk of power shortfalls predicted last year.

AGL reported an A$399mn ($258mn) profit for July-December 2023, up from the A$87mn recorded for the same period a year earlier.

The firm increased its commitment to renewable power and storage projects by 500MW to up to 5.8GW ahead of planned coal-fired power plant closures and under pressure from shareholders to transition away from fossil fuels.

AGL, Australia's largest greenhouse gas emitter, is pushing ahead with plans to decarbonise its operations under pressure from key shareholder climate activist and technology billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes.

By Tom Major