An offtake deal to support 1.5GW of renewable capacity, a WA Liberal election proposal, could cost about $230 million a year, industry sources suggest.
With bushfire smoke covering Perth and minimal wind, the state's coal power generators ran at full capacity for a period in Tuesday afternoon's sweltering heat.
The Liberal Party is standing by its previous commitment to keep Western Power in public hands, with a plan to allow retailers to enter the market place to drive competition.
A 12-month housing affordability experiment has been launched at Mirvac's Iluma Private Estate in Bennett Springs, to better understand the potential cost savings of energy-efficient homes.
A freeze on disconnections, compliance rules for renewable energy generation and a court dispute have affected Synergy, as it posted a $27 million loss.
A $644 million package to credit electricity bills is a smart move to encourage spending, economists say, while recent retail trade data is strong for WA.
Reforms to the WA energy market to enable more small businesses to choose their own electricity retailer, and reduce power prices, are under consideration.
Synergy has lost a Supreme Court judgement this week which will require it to pay the owners of the Newgen Power Kwinana power station for periods when the gas plant was ready on standby to supply the grid.
At least $100 million has been earmarked for initiatives in the Collie district as the state government targets its support for the area ahead of potential coal shutdowns, although there is debate about the impact on other regional towns.
Western Australia is the only Australian state expecting an increase in power prices during the next three years, according to new modelling out today, which could put pressure on the state government to introduce further competition to the electricity sector.
Regulators will be considering moves to cut the amount thermal generators need to pay when the electricity market is oversupplied, as independent retailers warn they may soon need to charge customers for exporting solar energy into the grid.
Almost $1.2 billion in dividends flowed to the state government from 11 of its businesses in the year to June 2019, according to their recently published annual reports.
Fortescue Metals Group, South32, Iluka Resources, Western Power and Synergy are among a group of 10 resources and energy companies collaborating to develop a toolkit to pre-screen for modern slavery risks within their supply chains.
Power utility Synergy has taken a $446 million impairment and reported a loss of $656.9 million in the year to June, which the state government-owned business said was driven by higher fixed costs as revenue fell.
Synergy has secured a substantial electricity supply deal with the North Metropolitan Health Service, one of several electricity contracts awarded by government agencies in the health and education sectors in recent months.
Synergy's renewable power joint venture has chosen Juwi Renewable Energy to complete the expansion of Greenough River solar farm, nearly a year after previous contractor RCR entered administration.
SPECIAL REPORT: Gas peaking generation and utility scale batteries will become increasingly valuable in WA as coal power units are retired and new wind farms come online.
The state government will shut two more generating units at the Muja coal power station, in October 2022 and October 2024, much earlier than scheduled.
Deputy under-treasurer Michael Court has joined the board of Horizon Power, the latest in a string of moves to appoint government employees to directorships at energy utilities.
Regional Development Minister Alannah MacTiernan announced the Collie Future investment prospectus this morning, touting millions of dollars in funding for the regional town.
Our weekly appointment wrap includes Chris Sutherland, Alan Cransberg, Bennie Ng, Glenn Thompson, Paul Boyatzis, Steve Clifford, Rob Heaslop, Dean Will, James Durrant, Basil Hanna, Bronwyn Barn
OPINION: The Western Australian government's love affair with Western Power is unlikely to be dimmed by local events any time soon, but a new force has been unleashed in the international marketplace as global oil companies morph into global electricity companies.
An investigation of Synergy's bidding behaviour by the state's Economic Regulation Authority found the power generator may have breached pricing rules in nearly 13,000 half-hour trading intervals between March 2016 and July 2017.
The federal government should offer Western Australia funding for power storage projects in proportion to its spending in the east, Energy Minister Bill Johnston says, while moves to introduce reserve capacity auctions and retail contestability locally are off his agenda.
Electricity has started flowing from APA Group's Badgingarra wind farm in recent days, while two of the state's major coal generating units have been powered down due to low demand.
Wind and solar generation backed by storage are competitive with coal and gas, according to a recent report by the CSIRO, but that does not mean coal-fired generation will be out of the picture.
