The Queensland government will keep its state-owned coal plants running for up to a decade longer than previous plans, in a move that will put pressure on national climate targets.
The Queensland treasurer and energy minister, David Janetzki, revealed an “energy roadmap” on Friday and said some state-owned coal assets would run until at least 2046, “meaning coal will be part of the state’s generation mix for decades”.
Critics – including energy analysts and conservationists – said the plans would saddle Queenslanders with expensive and unreliable energy that would damage the climate.
The minister confirmed the government had no plans to repeal the state’s legislated target to cut emissions by 75% by 2035, but did not explain how running coal for longer would affect those efforts.
“Put at its most straight-forward, to meet the energy generation challenge of our future, we need more generation,” said Janetzki.
“Coal for longer, more gas, more wind and solar and more pumped hydro and batteries for firming and storage.”
The roadmap is an abrupt shift from the previous Palaszczuk Labor government’s 10-year plan, announced three years ago almost to the day, which would have seen most of the state’s coal power turned off by 2035.
The state’s renewable energy targets – including an 80% target for 2035 – will be repealed, the roadmap confirmed.
Queensland is Australia’s highest emitting state, accounting for about 28% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
About one-third of Queensland’s emissions come from electricity generation. About 65% of the state’s electricity in the past year came from coal, followed by solar (20%) and wind (6%).
The state has eight coal-fired power stations – two are privately owned, five are owned by the government and one is part-owned in a joint venture.
Coal units at Stanwell, assumed to close in 2033 by the previous government, would run until at least 2043; Tarong, Tarong North, Callide B and Kogan Creek would run for a minimum of between two and six years longer.
Those closures were in line with those assumed by the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) in its long-term plans for the electricity market.
This month the owner of Queensland’s biggest coal-fired power plant at Gladstone told Aemo it wanted the option of being able to close the plant in 2029, six years earlier than expected.
The state government also announced a $400m fund would be created to “drive investment in renewables, like solar and hydro, and batteries to better store the energy we generate,” Janetski said.
The government had already announced that $1.6bn would be made available to maintain coal plants to try to avoid unplanned and expensive outages. The government also wants to attract private-sector investment in new gas-fired power in central Queensland, the roadmap said.
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The federal energy and climate change minister, Chris Bowen, said the announcement was “disappointing but not surprising” and said he would “leave it to the Queensland government to explain why they disagree with the warnings of independent bodies that have consistently said that unreliable, ageing coal is driving up bills for all Australians, including Queenslanders”.
The plan made “strong federal action” on climate change “more important, not less,” he said.
Stephanie Bashir, the chief executive of energy consultants Nexa Advisory, said: “The Queensland Government has delivered a cul de sac, not a roadmap. Queenslanders are being saddled with the most expensive energy option.
“Extending coal, which is already unreliable and expensive, means more outages, higher bills and less investment in cheap renewable alternatives, like wind and solar backed by batteries.”
Katie-Anne Mulder, the chief executive of the Queensland Renewable Energy Council, said the roadmap struck a “sensible balance”.
“Despite the decision to remove renewable energy targets, the roadmap relies upon up to 6.8 gigawatts of new wind and solar and 3.8GW of storage by 2030,” she said.
She said there was billions of dollars of renewable projects “ready to go” in the state.
“What matters now is delivering on the promise to accelerate renewables, strengthen the grid and give investors the confidence to deploy capital in Queensland,” she said.
Nicole Forrester, of WWF-Australia, said the government had released a roadmap “to more fires, floods and heatwaves, and more mass bleaching events for the Great Barrier Reef”.
“Keeping coal and delaying climate action will also mean more hip pocket pain for Queenslanders as extreme weather becomes more frequent and intense.”
