WA energy transition: Amber-Jade Sanderson reveals Synergy will spend $278m subsidising its coal power plants

Synergy will tip almost $280 million into propping up struggling coal power stations, as Energy Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson hits back at warnings the State faces an electricity shortage.

The State Government plans to shut taxpayer-owned coal plants by 2030 and has embarked on a big build of green energy and storage projects in the hopes of filling the gap.

Ms Sanderson told parliament on Tuesday that Synergy would spend $278m subsidising its coal plants over the next three years.

She said the figures would be “much higher” if the Government did not move to retire the publicly-owned coal power stations near Collie.

The plants only produced about 30 per cent of their nameplate capacity for the year, because the power stations are dialled down when electricity flows from rooftop solar.

“I’ve always said our transition out of coal is as much about economics as it is about the environment,” Ms Sanderson told a budget estimates hearing.

“With world-leading uptake of rooftop solar, our grid was always going to have to work with significant intermittent renewables.

“We need flexible generating units to reliably meet this demand.”

The subsidies are in addition to the $260m pumped into Griffin Coal to keep the insolvent miner supplying private power station Bluewaters until mid-2026.

More than $6 billion has been spent on cutting carbon emissions in the energy sector, according to the State Budget.

The Australian Energy Market Operator warned last week that more investment into green power, longer-duration storage, and transmission lines would be needed to keep WA’s lights on beyond 2030.

A 2 gigawatt gap is looming within a decade — close to half the demand on a summer peak day — thanks to closures and ageing facilities.

AEMO said there were projects in planning to fill the shortfall, although much of that was storage and not new generation.

Ms Sanderson said internal analysis by the Government should provide “greater reassurance to the public” the lights would stay on.

She told Parliament that about 5GW of capacity was proposed by 2030 and another 4GW was prospective.

“These numbers are not hypothetical. They are based on real market intelligence and broadly line up with the independent work recently release by AEMO,” Ms Sanderson said.

“Anyone who claims there is not enough generation capable of replacing coal-fired power by 2030 is not accounting for all of the facts that we have access to in Government.”