The state's Environmental Protection Authority has recommended conditional approval of its third coal-fired power station this week, giving a preliminary nod to Aviva Corporation's proposed 450 megawatt Coolimba power station near Eneabba.
The state's Environmental Protection Authority has recommended conditional approval of its third coal-fired power station this week, giving a preliminary nod to Aviva Corporation's proposed 450 megawatt Coolimba power station near Eneabba.
The recommended approval, which is contingent on a number of conditions being met by the proponent, follows Monday's similar approval of Griffin Energy's proposed Bluewaters 3 and Bluewaters 4 power plants at Collie.
The timing of the approvals is ironic, with the prospects for all three plants looking grim in the wake of Griffin's $1 billion collapse and Aviva's virtual shelving of Coolimba after it was passed over for a critical baseload supply contract with retailer Synergy.
In October last year, Aviva said it would seek a buyer to take on the $1 billion Coolimba proposal after Synergy chose to procure new supplies from state owned generation sibling Verve Energy. Aviva had been relying on a contract with Synergy to make the project bankable.
In January it said it had received several expressions of interest in the venture, and would continue to advance key elements of the proposal, such as environmental assessment, while it considered these expressions of interest.
Aviva's rights to the nearby Central West coal deposits also expired in November, though it has continued to work with the owner of the deposits to ensure the reserves remain available to the project.
The project also envisages 350 MW of gas-fired generation capacity.
Releasing its report on Coolimba today, the EPA said it believed the project could proceed without compromising the agency's objectives provided several key conditions were met.
One of the key recommendations included amending the route of the associated infrastructure corridor so that it does not encroach on the South Eneabba Nature Reserve, in which several threatened or rare species of flora were found.
It also recommended strict conditions associated with the project's claimed "carbon capture ready" status.
The EPA said it did not believe the proponents had demonstrated Coolimba's adherence to the International Energy Agency's definition of carbon-capture-ready, largely as it had not fully assessed the availability and suitability of carbon dioxide transport routes to proposed sequestration sites.
The EPA noted the proponents had identified depleted gas reservoirs in the region able to store up to 40 per cent of its proposed carbon emissions and estimated deep saline reservoirs could potentially contain all the plant's carbon emissions.
Consequently, it recommended that the proponents report regularly to the EPA on progress toward implementing carbon capture and storage at the site.
It also recommended that Coolimba be required to retrofit the plant to make it CCS ready within five years of such technology becoming commercially viable, and that the thermal efficiency of the plant be improved to meet world best standards for coal fired generators.
The EPA said while it distinctly preferred gas-fired capacity over coal, it recognised the limited short term availability of new domestic gas supplies in WA, and that reliance on coal "seems to be unavoidable for some period of time."
