Following a public battle over the direction of AGL’s coal-fired power plants on Twitter last week between the Prime Minister, the Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP, and the Managing Director and Chief Executive of AGL, Mr Andy Vesey, the pair met privately in Parliament House on Monday.
Plan to be delivered in 90 days of actions we'll take to avoid market shortfall once Liddell retires in 2022 https://t.co/SSljdWaM01
— Andy Vesey (@AndyVesey_AGL) September 11, 2017
Following the meeting, the Government was quick to celebrate a win of sorts, saying it had secured a commitment from AGL to develop, within 90 days, a proposal to go to its board that would keep Liddell open, sell Liddell to an interested party or guarantee equivalent power should the scheduled closure proceed.
However, a statement released by AGL following the meeting noted it had committed to deliver a plan to avoid an energy shortfall “once the Liddell coal-fired power station retires in 2022”, effectively ruling out keeping Liddell open or selling to a third party.
The vagaries of the meeting, plus the messy television pictures of the many AGL executives pushing their way through journalist scrums, reinforced the difficulties of a complex policy topic.
Bills for peak winter consumption over July and August are starting to land in the mailbox of homes and small businesses throughout Australia and will no doubt be raised in the late October sitting weeks.
