The Latrobe Valley’s Loy Yang A is Victoria’s largest coal-fired power plant. It’s also old and unreliable – leaving taxpayers exposed.
Under a deal with the state government, owner AGL provided a guarantee that Loy Yang A would be available to supply the grid with a steady pulse of energy for another 12 years.
According to the Australian Energy Market Operator, the loss of Loy Yang A was not the main cause of blackouts affecting 500,000 homes.
According to the AEMO, outages at Loy Yang A resulted in the loss of 312 megawatts of energy during the final three months of last year, down from 457 megawatts during the same three months of 2022.by progressive think-tank The Australia Institute found that Loy Yang A suffered more outages than any other power plant in the National Energy Market over the 18 months to June 2019, followed closely by nearby Yallourn.
Victoria Energy Policy Centre director Bruce Mountain said the condition of Victoria’s remaining coal-fired generators was not well known, including Loy Yang A, the youngest of the three. This, he suggested, made it difficult to assess whether it could reliably operate for another decade.