http://gty.im/661336340
By JACKSON PECK,
environment editor
Hazelwood, a 1600 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power station located in the Latrobe Valley, closed down last week, making it the largest of 12 coal-fired power stations that have closed in Australia since 2012.
Hazelwood produced roughly 25 per cent of Victoria’s electricity, employed 750 people in the area, and was well-known as Australia’s dirtiest power station, responsible for 14 per cent of Victoria’s total emissions.
The owner, French energy multinational Engie, surprised many in November last year when it announced the power station would be decommissioned at the end of March, a short time frame for an important electricity supplier and large employer.
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Workers leave Hazelwood Power Station for the final shift before it closed down.
The power station was built during the 1960s, and had already passed its initial expiry date of the early 2000s, but Latrobe Valley residents were shocked at the swiftness of the decision.
Voices of the Valley community group president Wendy Farmer said residents had been expecting a staged closure over several years starting at a later date.
“We’ve known for a long time that Hazelwood would close but we never knew when. The problem was even weeks before the announcement of the closure, Engie were saying that they were going to stay open until 2025,” Ms Farmer said.
Why is it closing?
Engie cited its desire to get out of coal and a difficult operating environment, including low electricity prices and an oversupply of electricity in Victoria, as reasons for Hazelwood’s closure.
Environment Victoria’s safe climate campaign manager Cat Nadel said the closure of the plant was a "turning point".
“It’s the first power station in Australia to close because of climate change,” she said.
Engie’s CEO in Australia Alex Keisser also noted the expense associated with revamping the old power station as a factor, stating that it would cost $400 million. The March 31 closure date was not by chance – April 1 was the deadline for the costly revamp to begin because of safety and compliance concerns.
What happens now?
Of the 750 workers previously employed at Hazelwood, Engie has committed to keeping 250 for the rehabilitation of the mine site, possibly up until 2023.
The State Government pledged $266 million to the Latrobe Valley in a support package that includes immediate funds, declared shortly after Engie publicly announced its decision to close the power station, as well as establishing the Latrobe Valley Authority, a diverse group created to invest in longer-term employment options.
The 150 workers now at Loy Yang A, another power station in the area, will take early retirement packages, supported by the State Government, to allow the equivalent number of redundant Hazelwood workers to be transferred and continue working.
This leaves about 350 workers unemployed.
Too little, too late?
The Latrobe Valley already suffers from a very high unemployment rate of 11.2 per cent, according to new data by Department of Employment, up from 6.9 per cent in June 2015.
Ms Farmer said it was not just the jobs at Hazelwood that had disappeared, but also jobs that relied on money that flowed from the power station.
“For every one person it’s about two people that work in a different industry around here because of [Hazelwood],” she said.
A young employee at a state government agency in the area, who wanted to remain anonymous, said Hazelwood’s closure “has ruined [her] life. I now have to move away”.
“It’s not hard to find stories like mine, it’s particularly bad in Morwell.”
The Latrobe Valley council has said it expected Hazelwood’s closure would take $340 million out of the local economy.
A community divided
Morwell’s newsagent owner Ray Burgess, the town hardest hit by Hazelwood’s closure, organised a rally at the Victorian Parliament last week in an effort to keep the power station open, supported by Morwell’s state MP Russell Northe.
https://twitter.com/RussellNortheMP/status/835663836178894848
Mr Northe, a Nationals MP, supported the Rally for the Valley held recently at the State Parliament, trying to keep Hazelwood open.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, speaking at the Victorian Liberal Party Conference on Saturday, blamed the Victorian Labor Government for Hazelwood’s closure.
Mr Turnbull rejected the idea of subsidising Hazelwood to stay open, an idea supported by some locals, business and government leaders including former prime minister Tony Abbott.
Ms Farmer said that while the negative health effects of Hazelwood was one of the only issues that the community agreed on, particularly after the devastating 2014 mine fire, the area had been associated with coal for so long that the power station’s closure was an attack on its identity.
“There tends to be the belief that we’ve only ever had coal, yet there are so many other really good things happening here,” she said.
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Workers hung their hard hats on the fence around hazel wood in protest at the end of their last shift.
While acknowledging the unemployment consequences for her community of Hazelwood closing, Latrobe Valley Sustainability Group president Lorraine Bull, a valley resident of more than 60 years, said she was happy with Hazelwood’s closure.
“We’re going to have much clearer skies, maybe we can breathe a bit better. I’ll certainly get less coal dust filtering down on my house, my washing,” she said.
“The amount of pollution that it did produce and actually it gives us an opportunity to move forward into the future.”
As the Valley adjusts to the closure of Hazelwood, an economically and socially important mega-building that dominates the skyline, residents are asking questions about the three other power stations in the area.
While Loy Yang A and B are newer than Hazelwood, Yallourn power station is of Hazelwood’s vintage and is widely expected to close within five to 10 years, despite owner Energy Australia saying the power station will operate until 2032.
Locals hope the area will learn from Hazelwood and be better prepared for its closure, whenever that happens.