Pic Couer Mail: Executive President Bowen Coking Coal and Coal Australia President Nick Jorss
An agreement, which follows the announcement last month of an energy purchase agreement for the Superior Solar Farm of Calliope in Queensland, will make Río Río the largest industrial buyer of renewable energy in Australia and is another important step in the work to re -enhance the company’s production active: Boyne Aluminum, aluminum Smalter, Yarwun aluminum Refinery and Queensland and queensland.
The independent analysis by Arche Energy demonstrates that the CSIRO GENCOST capital cost assumptions for the Ultra Supercritical plants of Black Coal (USC) are between 1.2 and 2.4 times higher than the recent reference points of the real world adjusted for Australian conditions.
The resulting electricity cost estimate for new coal plants is $ 50- $ 70/MWh, which is significantly cheaper than Gencost estimation of $ 102-164/MWh for black coal. It is also considerably lower than the current wholesale electricity price in the national electricity market that averaged more than $ 120/MWh in 2024.
Coal Australia, the maximum industry agency that represents coal producers, workers and their communities, asks the CSIRO to address inconsistencies in the evaluation of coal generation costs to ensure that Australian’s future energy system is optimized.
The executive director of Coal Australia, Stuart Bocking, said that the defective assumptions about the cost of coal energy were costing the Australians workers very much in energy invoices and preventing Australia from reaching their true energy potential.
“Australia is blessed with a lot of natural resources, including some of the highest quality’s coals in the world. This should do our energy among the cheapest and reliable in the world. However, we are running out of that potential.
The energy itself that could be to promote our economy, boost investment and ensure prosperity for future generations is retained by a selective policy, obsolete assumptions and unnecessary restrictions.
In its presentation, Coal Australia demonstrates that the Gencost analysis requires the leveling cost of electricity (LCOE) for coal by relying on problematic assumptions, such as excluding realistic designs of coal plants and exaggerating capital and operating costs.
Coal Australia found that this results in a distortion of comparative costs between coal and other technologies. If these critical errors are not addressed, Gencost’s credibility could undermine as a neutral policy tool for Australian energy planning.
The Arche Energy report also found that undertaking life extensions of coal plants to the existing fleet was a very profitable way to provide electricity to the network, based on the current data of the Queensland coal station. It was found that an extension of ten years for a coal plant required capital in order of only $ 500,000 per MW capacity.
Coal Australia president Nick Jorsss said the results raised serious questions about Gencost’s methodology and conclusions, particularly in relation to the cost of coal plants.
“Unfortunately, due to the limitations of the methodology and the assumptions of Gencost, the discovery of the holders that renewable energies have the lowest cost range of any new construction electricity generation technology, is not correct.
“If Gencost’s goal is to provide objective estimates for the cost of building a new generation of electricity that is both technology and neutral policy, then the assumptions chosen in LCOE’s calculations are inappropriate for that task.” Jorss said.
“Correct this will ensure that the report is truly neutral in policies, agnostic technology and can be seen credible for the broader energy market. It is our opinion that, based on assumptions of the real world, Gencost would find that coal has, with much, the lowest cost range of all new construction technologies.
“In addition, a low -cost life extension of the current coal fleet, instead of closing it prematurely under 82% of the government of the government for 2030 renewables, clearly has the ability to provide much lower electricity cost results for all consumers, retailers and businesses alike.”
* The greatest non -institutional shareholder of Río Tinto is the Royal Family, and with King Charles as the “brilliant green” of Europe, it is not difficult to understand the movement towards renewable energies.
