Australia’s largest coal-fired power station will close seven years earlier than planned, joining a growing list of plants forced offline in the country by the proliferation of cheap wind and solar energy.
The plant’s owner Origin Energy, a major utility and gas producer, said the 2.88 gigawatt Eraring power plant, located in the coal-rich Lake Macquarie region north of Sydney, was unable to compete with the “influx of renewables” and would close in 2025.
“Australia’s energy market today is very different to the one when Eraring was brought online in the early 1980s,” Origin chief executive Frank Calabria said. “The reality is the economics of coal-fired power stations are being put under increasing, unsustainable pressure by cleaner and lower cost generation, including solar, wind and batteries.”