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Galaxy of stars AROUND THE SCHOOLS PAGE 28
The Latrobe Valley was spoilt for choice last week, with footballers past and present making their mark. Moe footballer Tom Matthews was drafted to Melbourne, while Mid Gippsland player Willem Duursma was taken with Pick 1 to West Coast. Elsewhere, Kris Pendlebury has been appointed the new coach of Gippsland Power, and Traralgon Brownlow/Coleman medallist Kelvin Templeton has released his debut novel.To top it off, the great Gary Ablett Senior even called in for a rare public appearance. MORE - VALLEY SPORT Photographs: AFL/supplied
New life for Yallourn REVEALED: STATION TO BECOME LOW-CARBON EMISSIONS HUB
By PHILIP HOPKINS
ENERGY Australia will convert the Yallourn W coal station site into a lowcarbon emissions hub supplying data centres, industry and households, in an ambitious plan that will cost more than $5 billion. Energy Australia, which is Australia’s third-largest electricity and gas retailer, said the scheme that it has quietly developed as the coal plant moves towards closing in 2028, will mean the Latrobe Valley has a long-term future in power supply, the Australian Financial Review reported. EnergyAustralia’s chief executive, Mark Collette, said the age and inflexibility of the 1480-megawatt coal generator, and its struggles to remain reliable and profitable amid the rise of renewables, meant extending its life was not on the agenda, despite speculation it will run for longer because of the uncertainty how
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quickly renewables can be rolled out. The company, owned by Hong Konglisted CLP Group, has drawn up plans for what it calls the 'Yallourn Energy Security Precinct', where gas power and solar generation alongside large-scale battery storage will use the huge site, its access to water and its connection to the grid. “The site’s been running for 100 years, and we’d love to see it run in some capacity for another 100 years,” Mr Collette said in an interview with the AFR. “It’s clearly not going to be on brown coal if we’re looking 100 years into the future, but data centres, solar, batteries, gas-fired generation that can back up a renewable system - they all look quite prospective.” The first stage of the new precinct would be a gas power plant that could ultimately supply up to one gigawatt of power, and a similarly sized lithium-ion
battery with capacity for eight hours of storage. The gas power would come online by the middle of the next decade. Mr Collette said that while EnergyAustralia had yet to “bring the business case to life” and nail down gas supplies and other elements, he saw a clear role for gas-fired power to allow other Victorian coal stations, including AGL’s Loy Yang A, to close. “Whether it’s a bit earlier or a bit later for the other technologies, we think there’ll be an opportunity,” he added. Mr Collette said EnergyAustralia had held early discussions with data centre operators about the opportunity and was “quite optimistic” about the prospects for that industry to set up around Yallourn, given its access to transmission, water and power. But he also pointed to “challenges”, including access to fibre optic cable capacity into Melbourne. “There’s some real advantages to
Yallourn and at the full scale, it could well be $5 billion-plus,” he said. “Having said that, it’s a competitive market out there, and we’ll have to prove that this is the best site for those technologies.” Energy Australia is installing the Wooreen 350MW megawatt battery at the Valley’s Jeeralang gas power station that the company refurbished two years ago. The Federal Member for Monash, Mary Aldred, said the planned Yallourn project was welcome news for the Valley and Gippsland. “If state and federal Labor governments get out of the way, it can be great news nationally,” she told the Express. “Gas is critical for stabilising the grid as part of the energy transition. We absolutely should be incorporating a gaspowered plant into the energy pipeline.” Continued - Page 4
GREAT SCOTT! IT’S REEL TALK PAGE 32
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