Manufacturers will quit Australia if affordable, reliable energy cannot be guaranteed

The head of the Food and Grocery Council says manufacturers will quit Australia if affordable, reliable energy cannot be guaranteed.

The ageing brown-coal-fired generator in the Latrobe Valley will begin the staged shutdown of its eight units from March 27.

The final boiler will go cool on April 2.

With it will go 22 per cent of Victoria’s power supply and just over 5 per cent of the energy on a grid that runs from Port Douglas in far north Queensland to Port Lincoln on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.

The wholesale price of power spiked across the National Electricity Market in November on news that Hazelwood would shut.

Source: Hazelwood’s closure raises threats of east coast blackouts and manufacturers quitting Australia – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)