Key Coal Plant Shutters After 52 Years in Australia Energy Shift

• Liddell power plant near Sydney to be changed by huge battery
• Country is undergoing rapid shift from coal to renewables

Australia turned off among its biggest coal-fired power plant after virtually 52 years of procedure as the country accelerates its transition far from fossil fuels.

The Liddell plant in the Hunter region north of Sydney, which made use of to generate adequate power for regarding 750,000 homes, was turned off on Friday, utility AGL Energy Ltd. said. The business intends to construct a large grid-scale battery on the site, part of a wider plan to transform the coal-producing area into a clean-energy hub.

" Today notes the end of one chapter for the site, yet additionally the start of an additional with our strategies to transform the site into the Hunter Energy Hub," Chief Executive Officer Damien Nicks stated in a statement.

Australia is in the middle of among the world's fastest shifts from coal-- which currently creates over half of its electrical power-- to a renewables-dominated grid. By the middle of the following decade the majority of its coal plants will have closed, and also by 2040 near 100% of its electrical power will be created by wind, solar and also hydropower.

Australia's Changing Energy Mix

Renewables are anticipated to rapidly change the country's grid

AGL was the target of a takeover last year by Canadian private equity titan Brookfield Possession Monitoring as well as billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, that intended to shut its coal plants early and also replace them with renewables. That proposal failed, however Cannon-Brookes subsequently built an 11% stake in the business as well as drove a board and executive shakeup that caused a much more ambitious emissions-reduction approach.