Hunter gas plant ‘needed to keep the lights on’: Tomago CEO

Angela Macdonald-SmithSenior resources writer

May 19, 2021 – 6.09pm

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The country’s biggest energy user says the federal government’s $600 million gas-fired power plant in NSW’s Hunter Valley is “absolutely” needed to keep the lights on in the state, even as experts maintain it is not required to either keep supply reliable or power prices affordable.

The 660 megawatt Hunter Power Project announced by federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor may still be followed by yet another gas power plant in NSW as the Andrew Forrest-backed Port Kembla venture said it still sees an attractive business case for its gas-hydrogen project in Port Kembla.

Tomago Aluminium CEO Matt Howell has backed the new gas plant in the Hunter. Louie Douvis

After three forced outages at the Tomago aluminium smelter over the past week due to spiking power prices, Tomago Aluminium chief executive Matt Howell fully backed the Hunter Power Project.

“We absolutely support the need to transition to cleaner energy sources but we need dispatchable gas generation to keep the lights on as we do,” Mr Howell told The Australian Financial Review as the smelter recovers from its latest outage of potlines on Tuesday evening. The smelter’s power supply contract with AGL allows the retailer to ask Tomago to cut output when wholesale prices spike towards the maximum $15,000 a megawatt hour.

He noted that at 5am on Wednesday morning, 96 per cent of NSW’s electricity supply was being provided by black coal plants.

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“It’s not going to be solar that fills that void and it’s not going to be wind when there is no wind,” Mr Howell said.

“We think it is a very prudent and responsible measure to go ahead with this power station because the reality is, the reason the lights and heaters stayed on last night is because Tomago came off.”