Australian Coal-Fired Power Plants to Be Shut Down in 15 Years, Market Operator Predicts

Australia will close down all coal-fired power stations by 2038 at the latest, with an even faster transition to be expected in the next decade. The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) released a 2024 draft roadmap (pdf) that provides an overview of Australia’s energy transition for the next 20 years and beyond. Under a scenario that is most likely to happen, the AEMO predicted that 90 percent of the coal-fired power plants in the National Electricity Market, which covers most Australian states and territories except for Western Australia and the Northern Territory, would retire before 2035. By 2038, the entire coal fleet will cease to operate, which is five years earlier than what was forecasted in the 2022 roadmap....