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Former prime minister Tony Abbott and a coalition of businesses is pressuring Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to intervene to stop the closure of Victoria's Hazelwood power station to prevent a possible electricity crisis.
Mr Abbott used a newspaper column to warn of "looming summer blackouts" and described the closure of the Gippsland plant — scheduled for next week — as "the last thing we should be doing".
But Mr Turnbull said there was more than enough extra capacity in the national electricity generation system to compensate for the plant's closure, which was a commercial decision taken by its owner, Engie.
Mr Abbott said the Government should spend the money required to keep the plant operating at least until the completion of a planned $2 billion expansion of the Snowy Hydro power scheme to generate energy for up to 500,000 homes.
"If we are serious about tackling Australia's looming energy crisis, the last thing we should be doing is closing 20 per cent of Victoria's (and five per cent of Australia's) baseload power supply," Mr Abbott said in an opinion piece in News Limited papers.
"If we want secure and affordable power supplies, we can't lose the ones we have, even if they involve burning coal."
Mr Abbott said keeping Hazelwood open would "cap off a good week for the Prime Minister" after he "fought for free speech, announced a new crackdown on union corruption, and released an 'Australia First' citizenship statement".
"Stopping next summer's looming blackouts with bold action now is a chance to keep the momentum going."
Speaking later on RN Breakfast, Mr Abbott said limits on the use of Australian coal within Australia was one of the "bizarre features of this debate".
"Why is it right and proper for India and China to increase their energy production using Australian coal and not for Australia to do so likewise?" he said.
The idea has the backing of the country's peak industry body, the Australian Industry Group (AIG).
AIG chief executive Innes Willox said business leaders feared there could be a power crisis next summer.
"They have deep concern, really deep and serious concern, that once Hazelwood closes we will have a massive gap in the market because there hasn't been a proper sequencing of taking Hazelwood offline and replacing it," he told RN Breakfast.
'The cost of keeping Hazelwood going is enormous'
Asked about Mr Abbott's column, Mr Turnbull said all contributions to the debate were "gratefully received" but the company had made a commercial decision.
"The company has decided to close it because the cost of making it safe — the cost of paying for the long-deferred maintenance and to meet work safety requirements — runs into many hundreds of millions of dollars, even to keep it operating after June 30," Mr Turnbull said.
"The cost of keeping Hazelwood going is enormous.
"There is more than adequate unused capacity in our electricity-generation system across the National Electricity Market to make up for the loss of the generation from Hazelwood."
Engie chief executive Alex Keisser said he did not believe keeping Hazelwood was a realistic option.
Mr Keisser said neither the state nor federal government had been involved in any conversations with the company about a last-minute intervention.
"I believe it would be very late," Mr Keisser told RN Breakfast.
"They would need first a lot of money, and second we should not forget that we would need to act very quickly, because we need $150 million just to do the work by July needed to keep the plant safe.
"We're not at all making money out of the plant."
Victoria's Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio said Mr Abbott's intervention was "giving false hope to a community already under duress".
"The plant cannot survive and for Tony Abbott to come out at the last minute with his simplistic analysis and propositions really is self-serving and that's really all you can say about Tony Abbott's contribution to this whole debate," she said.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) issued a statement reiterating previous advice that the closure of Hazelwood would not compromise Victoria's electricity system, or the national market.
"There are power generation resources available in Victoria and the NEM (National Electricity Market) that are currently not operating at all or to their full capacity that can be made available to replace the power currently supplied by Hazelwood," AEMO said.
"AEMO's market analysis reveals these resources exceed the 1,600 megawatts capacity of Hazelwood."
Topics: electricity-energy-and-utilities, industry, federal---state-issues, government-and-politics, states-and-territories, morwell-3840, vic, australia, canberra-2600
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