EnergyAustralia Buys Vic Power Plants

Leading Australian energy retailer EnergyAustralia is to pay A$205mn ($158mn) for Ecogen Energy, which owns two Victorian gas-fired power stations. The seller is funds management company IFM Investors.

EnergyAustralia CEO Catherine Tanna said the acquisition provides EnergyAustralia with the certainity of direct ownership and the flexibility of intermediate and peaking gas-fired generation.

“Gas-fired generation has an important role to play supporting the integration of renewable energy which makes Ecogen a great addition to our asset portfolio,” Tanna said in an April 2 statement.

Ecogen is the owner of both the Newport and Jeeralang gas-fired power stations in the state of Victoria, representing 950 MW, or up to 9% of the state’s electricity generation capacity. EnergyAustralia has had an off-take agreement for substantially all the electricity produced by the plants since 1999.

Tanna said the plants will be integrated into EnergyAustralia, complementing the company’s existing fleet of owned coal, gas, wind, commercial-scale battery and demand response assets and contracts.

The Newport plant in Melbourne is a 510-MW single unit. Jeeralang, in the Latrobe Valley, has seven units with 440 MW total capacity. The intermediate and peaking plants are generally brought into operation when demand is high or as short-term replacements while other plants are serviced. EnergyAustralia expects the transaction to complete by June.