In 2023, China commissioned the most coal-fired power plants on the planet. But in terms of decommissioning, it took second place (minus 3.7 GW), behind the United States (minus 9.65 GW). The UK ranked third in terms of decommissioning (3 GW). And fourth is Australia (minus 1.5 GW). Australia now has 22.4 GW of coal. And I would like to say more about her.
A few years ago, Australian authorities decided that their continent was not green enough. To correct this injustice, it was decided to close coal-fired power plants. The state of South Australia became the pioneer of this absolutely necessary cause. The last coal power plant here was closed in 2016. The state's energy system is divided between gas and renewable energy sources, represented mainly by wind power plants.
The incident caused great excitement among the public (they say, hurray! Electricity production will no longer harm people’s health). And then nature presented a surprise – at the beginning of spring (remember that we are talking about the Southern Hemisphere) the wind blew – 100 km/h. Power lines were naturally damaged. But they weren't the problem. Wind power plants have stopped generating electricity. Gas power plants did not have time to compensate for the lost volumes, supplies from the state of Victoria were not enough – South Australia was left without electricity.
Local authorities were quick to declare that “electricity generating assets remained intact.” With this they responded to accusations from the public that the reliability of electricity supply has suffered due to an excessive share of wind energy. Of course, the wind farms were not damaged. They just don't work in wind speeds of 100 km/h. Later there were more shutdowns in the state. True, they are no longer so large-scale. But there were enough of them for even the Guardian to suspect something.
And they became worried about the fate of the whole of Australia, which is rapidly getting rid of coal generation.
Why does Australia need all this? Save the planet? This goes without saying. People are lining up to save the planet. But Australia is also the second largest exporter of coal. Moreover, it still consumes about 14% of the produced volumes (according to data for 2022) itself. But these volumes can be exported. We just need to close all coal power plants.