Coal backflip just the another sign of a failing transition plan
3nd February 2026
There are some key points coming from the opinion piece by the Minister for Energy Amber-Jade Sanderson published on January 27 that need an intelligent response.
The first requirement of Government energy policy is to keep the lights on and air conditioners running.
The second is to do it at a price the community can afford.
The third is to do it producing the lowest emissions they can.
Labor’s current energy transition plan will not achieve either of the first two, and they are failing to deliver the third.
You wouldn’t think so when you read the Minister’s claim that the Government is “building the economy of the future with secure, clean power” but this claim is a blatant and observable nonsense.
When the Government announced in 2022 that it was closing coal generation by the end of 2029 it said it would build 810 megawatts of large-scale renewable generation in response.
It has added none since 2022, and although it has plans to add 390 megawatts over the next five years at Warradarge, Flat Rocks and King Rocks, this will only see them get half way to their promise.
They are five to ten years behind schedule.
Instead of delivering on their promise they are waiting for the private sector to build wind farms to save their bacon. On the radio the Minister pointed to a $50 billion pipeline of mainly private wind power proposals.
Over the last five years though while they shut down 430 megawatts of coal generation the Government, who is the biggest purchaser of power into the grid, has only signed up to 108 megawatts of offtake agreements for private renewable energy.
Private renewable generators cannot get finance to build their projects if they cannot sell the power they produce, so the Cook Government is undermining its own energy policy by refusing the support the very industry they are relying on to save their failing plan.
And the Premier had the gall to berate private power users for not purchasing large renewable offtake agreements to underpin the renewable industry when his Government is the worst offender.
The Government’s boast that they can generate up to 80% of demand on the grid from renewables is also misleading.
That is 80% at times of low demand and high production, mainly from rooftop solar installed by private citizens.
They average 40% of grid demand over time.
More importantly, at times of peak demand they are still relying on coal and gas, which over the last two peaks at around 6pm on very hot summer evenings provided nearly 90% of the power that was needed.
They cannot keep the state’s air conditioners running without them.
As a result of this mismanagement, nobody should be surprised by the announcement that the Government has backflipped again and announced more subsidies to extend the life of Griffin Coal.
We already knew that coal generation would have to be extended because the Cook Government plan for an energy transition is five to ten years behind schedule and cannot be delivered on time.
The original Labor plan to shut down all coal generation by the end of 2029 has been carefully reworded over the last year to shutting down “state owned” coal generators only as the Government finally awakened to the impending failure of their energy transition.
This was probably because while the Government was telling the market operator AEMO that Bluewaters should close, AEMO was telling the Government that it couldn’t afford to close it.
In fact, the Labor Energy transition is in such disarray that the key planning document, the Whole of System Plan, has been delayed for years and now won’t appear until late 2027.
Which means the Labor plan to deliver the transition won’t be seen until two thirds of the transition period is over.
In the end the Labor Government will have no choice but to scrap their current transition plan for energy and come up with one that will deliver what matters most – reliable and affordable electricity.
Now that is a backflip that would really benefit the WA community.