The closure of the 100-year-old Yallourn power plant has been moved forward to 2028. 

EnergyAustralia, which is owned by Hong Kong based CLP Group, has announced it will fast-track the closure and build a massive 350-megawatt four-hour battery facility to fill the gap.

EnergyAustralia has also announced a multimillion-dollar support package for the 500 Yallourn workers affected.

The station currently supplies about 22 per cent of Victoria’s electricity, burning 18 million tonnes of brown coal each year to produce about 1480 megawatts of electricity an hour, while emitting up to 14 million tonnes of CO2 each year. 

EnergyAustralia boss Liz Westcott says it is a sign of the times. 

Coal-fired power has been the “backbone of our energy system for decades”, Ms Westcott told reporters last week.

“But that is changing,” she said. “More recently we’ve observed coal is less required as more renewables enter this system.”

Origin Energy, which runs Australia’s biggest coal power plant at Eraring, NSW, sees a similar future.

“The transition is really accelerating now,” Origin chief executive Frank Calabria said on Wednesday.

JP Morgan analyst Mark Busuttil said “Yallourn’s closure is an indicator of where the market is at”, highlighting ongoing “unsustainable” prices. 

These prices could also affect the coal assets of other power giants like AGL and Origin.

Victoria’s other power stations, Loy Yang A and Loy Yang B, also run on brown coal. This makes them cheaper to operate, but they are unable to ramp up and down output in response to changing prices.

Environment Victoria chief executive Jono La Nauze says state and federal governments must use transition plans to replace Australia’s approximately 20 coal-fired power plants with renewable energy.

Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor says he “won’t stand idly by” while the risk of outages and volatility rises. However, the plan at the moment appears to be just that.