The OP is a good example of vested interests distorting the argument for their own selfish reasons. They couldn't give a tinker's about the community. If they had decent reasons they would be upfront and honest with them.
Rob's post the other day highlighted the fact that renewables are getting to the size now where they could become disruptive. That's no good for anyone. We are at the point where we need to see large storages developed in order to absorb those renewable excesses. Not only will it make renewables more efficient, it will benefit the fossil generators with less disruption and it will also help prove the renewable/storage model before we get too far into it.
The longer we delay policy the longer we wait for storage to be built. The delay is hurting everyone.
I could still see the possibility of one HELE getting built if the need could be proven. Call it an insurance policy if you like and it might mean that another cfps would be retired earlier . However, given the time it would take to build now, let's say 5 years on a brownfield site, I think that's even too long. Considering that Snowy 2.0 and the Tassie Big Battery could be built in a similar time frame and those assets are both upgradeable and will have very long service lives, I can't see why you would bother with coal. In the time it takes to build another cfps, say 5 years, there will be a large amount of renewable generation and smaller storage built which will compliment the large storages.
Using the last couple of summers as an example, we have had enough power to get us through albeit there was a small bit of curtailment. Much of that was due to network issues rather than outright supply. So we are very close to having enough power 100% of the time. If we built a new cfps it would probably mean we would have an excess of power thus pushing an old station out of the market.
AGL believes it can replace Liddell with gas, wind, solar and storage. Surely that is the busines example of why a new cfps shouldn't be built ?
