MEDIA STATEMENT: AGL market update

In response to AGL’s Half-year market update released today, Jono La Nauze, CEO of Environment Victoria, said:

“Today the new ‘dirty AGL’ spinoff company has announced that it hopes to keep Loy Yang power station polluting for another 23 years. This timeline is completely unacceptable.

“AGL is still stringing the community along, when workers and the Latrobe Valley community are calling for certainty and realistic timelines.

“According to today’s market update, Loy Yang power station in Victoria would close ‘no later’ than 2045, which is just 3 years before its current official closure date of 2048.

“This confirms our worst fears that AGL has split off their coal assets as a ‘greenwashing’ exercise and the new company Accel is going to attempt to keep their coal power stations polluting as long as possible.

“Pretending the energy transition is going to roll out slowly over several decades helps no-one and is a frankly absurd position to take when the Australian Energy Market Operator has forecast all Victorian brown coal power stations will close by 2032.

“Given the history of coal companies making sudden exits from the Latrobe Valley, the Victorian government would be wise to take AGL’s statements with a grain of salt and must continue supporting community-led transition by extending funding for the Latrobe Valley Authority post-June 2022.

“We believe the Latrobe Valley Authority remains well placed to manage a just transition for the Latrobe Valley community away from coal and towards a socially and ecologically sustainable regional economy.

“According to YouGov polling released this week, nine out of ten (90%) of respondents in the Latrobe Valley agreed that the state government should ensure power station operators are responsible for cleaning up former power stations so that they are safe and can be used for other purposes.