BY PETER HYSLOP
Liddell Power Station is due to close at the end of this month after the plant was deemed expensive, outdated, and unreliable by its operator, AGL.
The closure marks the end of Australia's oldest operating coal plant, making way for new renewable energy projects.
But as the power plant goes offline, businesses are calling for cheaper renewable energy to be made available.
CEO of Business Hunter Bob Hawes says more needs to be done to sure up the grid into the future.
"As we move forward on this pathway of more closures of large-scale coal-fired power stations, [we need] to have renewables built and commissioned that can replace them and we simply don't have that at the moment.
"There's a lot of announcements around projects, and the list is very long ... [but] we're not seeing large-scale renewables come on stream at affordable prices in a volume and timely matter to offset the immediate concerns we have," he said.
Hawes said business and government need to work together to ensure local renewable energy projects get off the ground.
"Liddell ... serves as a very poignant reminder that we've got a lot of work to do to make sure the transition to renewables is smooth," he said.
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| Liddell Power Station (Australian Government) |
