Queensland households could face higher power prices after a major state electricity generator warned it was likely to remain offline until 2024, in a disappointing blow for the Labor government.
The Callide C joint venture has revised the return to service dates for Units C3 and C4 at the incident-prone Callide coal-fired power station following advice from independent technical experts on a cooling tower rebuild project.
CS Energy owns the Callide C Power Station in a joint venture with Genuity, which is in administration, and operates it on behalf of the group.
CS Energy acting CEO Andrew Varvari acknowledged that historically the performance of the Callide C generating units had not been good enough.
“CS Energy is acutely aware of the importance of reliable generation from coal-fired generators such as the Callide C Power Station, particularly at a time of high gas and coal prices and with reducing coal generation across the energy sector,” Mr Varvari said on Tuesday.
Under the revised timetable, the return to service dates for Units C3 and C4 have been pushed out from the final quarter of 2023 to the first and the second quarters of 2024, respectively.
Deputy Premier Steven Miles said while wholesale prices would be affected there was potential for retail prices to also be hit “over time”.
“It’s not as simple as taking the wholesale power prices and assuming that will flow through as a direct increase in retail power prices,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
“The relationship is much more complicated than that but we do know power prices, both wholesale and retail, have been increasing and that’s putting pressure on households.”
© AAP 2023
