Australia’s existing gas power plants are running well below capacity, challenging the justification for a Morrison government program that may support up to five new gas-fired generators, according to a new report.
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| Gas is expensive, it’s high-polluting and underperforming,’ says Richie Merzian from the Australia Institute, who published the report. ‘Why would we underwrite new gas-fired plants?’ |
Energy analyst Hugh Saddler, from Australian National University’s Crawford school of public policy, found the combined-cycle gas plants in the national grid – those expected to be available near constantly, sometimes described as “baseload” – ran at just 30% capacity across the past 18 months.
The Australia Institute, the thinktank that publishes Saddler’s monthly energy audit which includes the gas analysis, said it suggested the government’s commitment to underwrite new gas generators made little sense, and if it wanted to increase supply it should find ways to get the current fleet to operate at greater capacity.
Read the story form The Guardian by Adam Morton - “‘Expensive and underperforming': energy audit finds gas power running well below capacity.”
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