“Forecast reliability gaps have emerged across national electricity market regions due to considerable coal and gas plant closures,along with insufficient new generation capacity commitments needed to offset higher electricity use,” Westerman said.
Cheaper power supply from wind and solar is undermining coal’s business model and at least five major plants are set to shut in the next 10 years. AEMO has forecast that 60 per cent of the eastern seaboard’s coal plants will leave the electricity grid by 2030,with the last to shut by 2042.
“Without further investments,this will reduce generation supply and challenge the transmission network’s capability to meet reliability standards and power system security needs,” he said.
However,momentum for the clean energy transition has been accelerating since Labor came to power in May.
It has pledged a $20 billion Rewiring the Nation policy to fund cheap loans to transmission companies to facilitate network expansion and earlier this month struck an agreement with the states to identify transmission projects of national significance to speed their development.
AEMO on Wednesday released its annual Economic Statement of Opportunities,which is designed to identify new commercial opportunities and tell power companies if shortfalls in electricity generation are looming so they know if there is a commercial case to build a new plant.